First meeting of the partners of the “green routes without barriers” project

The “green routes without barriers” of the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument project “green routes without barriers” gathered at the Dagda municipality's Nature Inquiry Centre.
Representatives of the Dagda Brotherhood Brotherhood “Nema” (Latvia), the Latvian People with Disabilities Cooperation Organisation SUSTENTO, the Vilnius Disabled Society (Lithuania) and the Vitebsk Public Association's Unified Association for wheelchair User Associations (Belarus) talked about experience in work aimed at a positive understanding of people with disabilities and their daily facilitation.
Representatives of the Latgale Regional Administration of Latvia received guests from Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus who came to meet the other project partners and discuss “green routes without barriers” execution of works to be performed. The meeting was opened by Mr Zeize, Director of the Latgale Regional Administration of Latgale, who told him about the progress of the project application and wished to implement a successful project.
In the course of the meeting, representatives of the Nature Protection Administration (Latvia), the Dagda municipality council (Latvia), the Regional Park of Gražutes (Lithuania) and the State Environmental Protection Company “Eko-Rossi” (Belarus) presented the activities of their institutions, the public services provided and the experience of project implementation.
A common understanding of the problems led to the consolidation of the partners' efforts to implement the project activities in a qualitative and consistent manner, to create suitable natural tourism infrastructure, to organise training seminars for tourism service providers, to issue manuals for outdoor activities, to develop travel routes, to issue guides and other materials providing project publicity, as well as to organize a final event – several days of long-term wheelchair traveling marathons that will start in the Lithuanian city of Salaka.
The next day, the project representatives went through Razna National Park to see the most popular sites of the national park and the project “green routes without barriers” in the territory of Latvia. The guests visited the Nature Education Centre “Razna”, the Cloud and Azzeru, on which the natural tourism infrastructure suitable for people with disabilities will be created – the natural trail in the Piloros oak grower and the boat berth in the Ezernieki.
On behalf of the Vilnius People's Žemaitaitytė, Ginth, on behalf of the partners, congratulated on the meeting and wished successful cooperation in the implementation of the project.
The total eligible costs of the project are EUR 172 337.90, of which 155 104.11 EURO is co-financing of the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument for Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus, while EUR 17233.79 - the co-financing of the partners.
Irene Browisha
Nature Protection Administration Latgale Regional Administrations
nature Protection Senior Specialist, Project Assistant
Photo: Dainis Lesničius