International Accessibility Day in Lake Hula Park

KKL-JNF has made Israel's prime bird-watching site totally accessible to people with physical limitations, including the wheelchair bound, the visually impaired and the hard-of-hearing.
Around 500 people with disabilities from northern Israel took part in a fun day at Lake Hula Park, as part of the activities held by KKL-JNF for International Accessibility Day on December 3rd. The visitors enjoyed excursions, professional guided tours with KKL-JNF guides, and accessible fun activities.

 
On International Accessibility Day KKL-JNF held a variety of events all over the country. In Lake Hula Park in the Upper Galilee, the organization hosted some five hundred people with disabilities from northern Israel for a fun day that included guided tours and a hanukkiah-making workshop.  Each of the twenty groups that participated was presented with a tray of doughnuts, dreidels and candies for the children, in honor of the Hanukkah holiday. Some of the activities – such as handicrafts, guided tours and a visit to the photo exhibition held in the lobby with a special games app for families – were also open to the general public.
 
The accessibility project in Lake Hula Park was started four years ago as part of KKL-JNF’s accessibility program for its sites all over Israel.
 
“This is an experience that until just a few years ago people with disabilities could not have enjoyed, as the site hadn’t yet been made accessible,” said Public Relations Officer for KKL-JNF’s Northern Region Revital Aviv. “Hula Lake Park is a remarkable site that is often referred to as a veritable paradise for birds and people. At this time of year, we have fifty thousand cranes here. Now that the site has been rendered accessible, visitors with disabilities can enjoy professional guiding services: audio systems with sound loops that filter out background noise for the hard of hearing and Step-Hear listening stations for the visually-impaired that are designed to begin their audio explanations as soon as they sense a visitor’s approach – and, of course, all the routes are accessible and the site has been adapted to suit the needs of people with disabilities.”
 
During the course of the day the groups split up to visit different points all over the park, and at each site they received explanations from professional KKL-JNF guides. In the botanical garden’s acclimation plot at the entrance to the park, the visitors enjoyed a Hanukkah handicraft workshop at which they made birds and hanukkiah candelabras from pine cones and acorns.
 
“The handicrafts are a great idea, and we’re all really enjoying ourselves,” said Rachel Honig of the Netanya Club for the hard of hearing. “The site is truly beautiful and interesting. This is the first time I’ve been here and I see it’s really nice and big.”
 
As the acclimation plot includes a large number of disabled-accessible picnic tables, the visitors used it as an assembly point at mealtimes. Hula Lake Park's botanical garden is a comparatively new project that was begun about a year ago. Extending over an area of some thirty dunam (approx. 7.5 acres), it is the largest botanical garden in northern Israel. It has been rendered disabled-accessible by the provision of broad paths adapted for wheelchair use, while abundant benches offer opportunities to sit down and rest. The visitors received an explanation about the garden and its role in rehabilitating the lake’s historic vegetation, some of which is in danger of extinction.
 
“We’re touring the lake now, and enjoying ourselves,” said Meyer Karini of Kiryat Shmona’s Shechafim School, who is blind and accompanied by a guide dog. “They let us handle a number of the plants in order to identify them. It’s good when you can handle things so you can understand what they are.”
 
Lake Hula has three bird-watching points: one for waterfowl, another for pelicans and the third for cranes – and here, too, the visitors were accompanied by professional guides. In addition, each lookout area has both its own Step-Hear system, which describes the site and the birds it attracts, and an audio loop system that enables the hard of hearing to understand what the guide is saying by eliminating background noise and other acoustic disturbances.
 
Another especially interesting attraction at the lake is the bird-ringing station, which is reached by raft. Although nets could not be spread because of the strong winds blowing that day, and thus no birds could be caught for a live demonstration, the visitors nonetheless enjoyed the explanations provided by Hula bird-ringing station director Nadav Israeli and KKL-JNF Chief Ornithologist Yaron Charka, who described activities at the station and emphasized the importance of ringing birds in order to track their flight and learn about their habitats. 
 
“Lake Hula is one of the most important bird migration sites in Israel,” explained Yaron Charka. “We operate a bird-ringing station here, primarily for songbirds, for monitoring and research purposes. Most visitors to the lake tend to focus on the cranes and the waterfowl, and ringing provides us with an opportunity to give them a good close look at the songbirds.”
 
Charka went on to describe in detail the special challenges that faced the staff as they made the site and its information accessible to people with disabilities.
 
“The greatest challenge was: how is it possible to make the wonderful process of bird-ringing accessible to visually-impaired visitors? They can’t handle the birds, because this is not a petting zoo and they are wild creatures – and so we came up with the idea of using a 3-D printer to make models of them. Then we brought in a special artist who painted the models exactly as the birds are in nature, so that they could be used not only for the visually impaired, but for other visitors, too.
 
“We also made a panel of four model birds here, each with a differently-shaped beak. To each bird we attached mechanisms that simulate the movement of the beak and its call or song. These models help visitors to identify the birds by means of sound and touch. There is also a globe on which the continents and bird-migration routes are raised above the surface, so that visually-impaired people can trace them with their fingers.” 
 
It is impossible to spend a whole day at Hula Lake Park without going for a spin in the mobile “hide.” This vehicle, which is towed by a tractor, conveys visitors directly into the crane feeding areas and allows them to approach the birds as closely as possible without disturbing them. During the month of December tens of thousands of cranes frequent the lake, and an interesting guided tour in the hide is an unforgettable experience.
 
“We went for a tour in the hide, and now we’re doing handicrafts. The guys are really enjoying themselves. We had no trouble at all making our way around here, thanks to the accessibility work they’ve done. It’s all first class,” declared Jiyan Tarabuf Sallah from the Maghar School of special education.
 
“It was a very successful excursion,” concluded Revital Aviv as she summed up the activities of the busy day. “Lots of groups called to say that they’d really enjoyed themselves.”