Educational
services have been offered at the State Darwin Museum for over 80 years. The
founder and the first director of the Darwin museum Alexander Fedorovich Kohts
gave many guided tours for blind students since mid 1920es. During the Great
Patriotic War, the museum was visited by different groups of injured and
disabled people. The director A.F. Kohts often worked with them personally.
Currently,
the Museum regularly receives visitors with various forms of disability:
-
Mobility impairment
-
Hearing-impaired
-
Blind and visually
Impaired
-
Intellectual
disability and autism
The
director of the museum Anna Iosifovna Kliukina gives a guided tour for the
disabled visitors. The director of the Russian disability non-governmental
organization (NGO) “Perspektiva” Denis Rosa (in the centre) and the disabled
visitors: Natalia Prisetskaya and Valeriy Shkolnikov.
The Darwin
museum is especially equipped for disabled visitors. If necessary, the museum
staff will assist you.
A special
route around the exposition was devised for blind visitors; the route includes
tactile study of sculptures and reconstructions of ancient people and extinct
animals.
A number of
exhibits was selected for tactile study of the blind. These items reflect the
funds of the Museum, including the ones on display or inaccessible to public:
invertebrates, bones, stuffed birds and animals, pieces of fur of various
mammals.
A number of
exhibits was selected for tactile study of the blind. These items reflect the
funds of the Museum, including the ones on display or inaccessible to public:
invertebrates, bones, stuffed birds and animals, pieces of fur of various
mammals.
The State
Duma Deputy O.N. Smolin, visually disabled of the 1 group, examines a stuffed pangolin.
Mr. Colin
Low, the President of the European Blind Union, examines the stuffed owl.
The museum
regularly hosts exhibitions, presenting the works of artists with disabilities
and children with autism and delayed development. The achievements of the
museum in the field of creating a comfortable environment for disabled persons
was marked at the “REHA-2003” exhibitions in Düsseldorf (Germany), and at the
Sokolniki exhibition complex in Moscow (the “Invatekh-2003”, “REHATECH-2005” events).