Inclusive
Cities

Youth for Accessible Urban Spaces

Inclusive
Cities

Making cities easier to move through, together.

Cities work differently depending on who is moving through them. Inclusive Cities brings young people from Madeira and Palermo into the middle of that conversation, mapping barriers, spotting good practice, and turning everyday experience into practical public action.

Explore the Project
Explore Outcomes

Why accessibility matters in

Madeira and Palermo

Inclusive Cities looks at accessibility in the real world:
the pavement, the crossing, the doorway, the route between places, the missing bench, the steep slope, the sign no one can read, the entrance that technically exists but still doesn’t work for many people.

The project connects young people, people with reduced mobility, and local actors to document those problems and push for practical change.

Why this
project exists

Mobility barriers still shape daily life in ways that are easy to ignore if you don’t face them yourself. Inclusive Cities opens that up through direct observation, lived experience and shared discussion, so accessibility stops being an abstract topic and becomes something people can see, name and act on.

What the
project does

The project links Madeira and Palermo through workshops, mapping, dialogue and youth-led public action.

Participants identify barriers, document what they find, test solutions, meet local stakeholders, and turn their findings into digital tools and practical resources that can be used after the project ends.

Who it is for

The main focus is young people from Madeira and Palermo, especially those who face barriers to participation or live with mobility-related limits, alongside peers who want to understand accessibility better and take part in civic work.

Schools, NGOs, municipalities and local groups are part of the wider audience.

Project
Partners

Associação
My Madeira Island

Madeira, Portugal

Coordinates the project and leads communication, local outreach in Madeira, and the digital side of the public platform.

Associação My Madeira Island is a non-profit organization focused on sustainable cities, youth empowerment, and cultural exchange in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Using non-formal education, they design and run training courses, youth exchanges, and community initiatives that build civic competencies.

As the main coordinator of Inclusive Cities, they lead digital platform development, public outreach, and international dissemination workflows.

Uniamoci APS

Palermo, Italy

Leads from Palermo with strong practice in disability inclusion, accessible participation, and local community work.

Formed in 2008, Uniamoci APS is a social inclusion association based in a Palermo center reclaimed from assets confiscated from organized crime.

The organization specializes in the empowerment and social protection of youth and adults with disabilities through daily non-formal workshops, creative arts, and international volunteering.

For Inclusive Cities, they ground the fieldwork in proven disability inclusion methods, driving the localized community outreach and spatial mapping in Palermo.

04 · Local & International

Events

  • 2International mobilities
  • 4Local events in each city
  • 2Hosts: Madeira & Palermo

International mobilities

Palermo · Mobility

First International Workshop

Palermo is where the practical work starts. The first international workshop is the place for walking the city, testing how barriers and good practice are recorded, comparing how different people move through the same streets, and turning those observations into the first shared methods.

Key activities

  1. Street-level observation in Palermo.
  2. Initial testing of categories for barriers and good practice.
  3. Group reflection on what counts as accessibility in practice.
  4. First recommendations, case notes and material for the platform and toolkit.
View Gallery
Palermo, host city of the first international workshop
Palermo, Italy

Madeira · Mobility

Closing Session

Madeira serves as the closing international mobility, gathering participants to review collected data, compare spatial evidence across both urban environments, iterate on the digital platform, and finalize reusable community materials.

Planned activities

  1. Review mapped findings from Madeira and Palermo.
  2. Test and refine the public platform and learning materials.
  3. Compare local realities and next steps.
  4. Turn project learning into future-facing actions and public outputs.
Coming Soon
Madeira, host of the closing international session
Madeira, Portugal

Local events

Simultaneous in Madeira & Palermo

  1. Living Library

    Unheard Voices, Unseen Barriers

    A one-day community event designed to promote dialogue and advocacy for mobility inclusion. Young people, youth workers, policy-makers, and individuals facing mobility challenges come together to share personal experiences, discuss urban barriers, and co-create accessible solutions.

  2. Urban Accessibility Workshop

    Accessibility Detectives

    An introductory workshop on inclusive urban planning followed by guided field research. Armed with the project's mapping tool, participants identify, log, and analyze real-world structural barriers, proposing practical improvements and testing their feasibility.

  3. Youth-Led Advocacy Campaign

    Amplifying Voices

    A creative workshop that equips young participants with digital media skills and advocacy strategies. The team builds high-impact awareness campaigns using social media assets, mini-documentaries, blog articles, and photography exhibitions to highlight local accessibility issues.

  4. Visit to Local Municipality

    A Dialogue on Mobility and Policy

    A structured roundtable bringing youth, municipal officials, and NGOs together to address urban mobility issues. Participants formally present the project's key findings, share documented case studies, and introduce the digital mapping tool to spark local policy debate.

05 · Project Outcomes

Project Outcomes

Tools and resources from Inclusive Cities.

Public Mapping Hub

Web App

The Web App is a public, interactive map designed to turn everyday experiences into real policy change. It allows anyone to flag accessibility issues, track improvements, and provide concrete evidence for municipal action.

How it works

Prototype

Open resource · EN / PT / IT

Toolkit and Handbook

Practical Toolkit Asset built straight from field workshops and regional case studies. Crafted specifically to enable direct replication, this reusable resource is designed to help outside youth organizations, schools, community NGOs, and local councils establish similar initiatives.

Core resource contents

Inside the handbook
Inclusive CitiesHandbook & Toolkit

Field guide · Palermo & Madeira

Walk, observe, log

  1. Briefing and roles for the group
  2. Walk the route, stop at each point
  3. Log entries in the mapping tool
  4. Debrief and compare what you found

Field-tested in Palermo & Madeira Accessible HTML + PDF

Real Places.
Real Barriers.
Real Change.

Making cities easier to move through, together.

Contact Partners

My Madeira Island

Visit site
info@mymadeiraisland.com

Uniamoci APS

Visit site
info@uniamoci.eu
Co-funded by the European Union

Disclaimer: The European Union support for the production of this publication does not constitute any endorsement of the content, which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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