The #EnAble Parking? Campaign celebrates 4 years since it s launching. During this time, the message of the campaign to free the parking spaces for the disabled persons and wrongly occupied has reached in almost 1000 designated parking spaces, in 133 cities in Romania.

Through the message: “People with disabilities do not want designated parking space, but they need it!”, the campaign is addressed to the drivers with and without disabilities, the future drivers and the pedestrians, and it sends the incentive to comply with one of the rights of the disabled persons in Romania. The aim is to convince the drivers without disabilities to free the parking spaces unassigned and to encourage the others to follow their example.

Nationally, over 8500 drivers and passengers with disabilities use adapted vehicles to travel, according to the data provided by the Romanian Automotive Register, for January 2012 – July 2021, at the request of the Motivation Romania Foundation.

“There are traffic rules that we all follow because we want to get well at home, at work or anywhere our destination is. This makes us equals in traffic. I am a disabled driver, and in a public parking, I try to identify the designated parking spaces. If I m lucky I easily find the spaces properly signposted.  I had very often the unpleasant surprise to find those places wrongly occupied by other drivers without disabilities. In such moments, I have strongly felt the feeling of unfairness. I wish the #EnAble Parking? Campaign diminishes the lack of information, in order to become all equals, not only in traffic,” said Dan Humă, wheelchair user and independent life instructor.

The campaign consists in placing within the designated parking spaces for the disabled persons of the panels with the campaign visual, distributing flyers, broadcasting videos on the internal and external communication channels of the partners, and sending online messages in the social media. All of these seek to inform the audience in order to increase the access of the drivers or the passengers with disabilities to the designated parking spaces.

The #EnAble Parking? Campaign is nationally supported by partners in the shopping centers, general stores and other public institutions.

“For 4 years we have been carrying the #EnAble Parking?Campaign message in many media as possible, to reach a larger number of persons. We still believe it is important to inform, to educate the traffic participants about the importance of the designated parking spaces. We want to keep this campaign active as long as possible, so the message to free the designated parking spaces reaches more cities in Romania” declared Cristian Ispas, General Manager of the Motivation Romania Foundation.

This year, at the 4 year anniversary, the campaign enjoys the support of Lidl Romania, which has answered the call of Motivation Foundation to send the message of the campaign through a new way, which is gluing a bus on line 104 in Bucharest.

The #EnAble Parking? Campaign had been launched in November 2017 in over 260 Mega Image stores, and later other partners joined in: Lidl Romania, IKEA Romania, Mega Mall, Sun Plaza, Drumul Taberelor Shopping Center, Shopping City Buzau, Shopping City Targu Jiu, Coresi Shopping Resort, Felicia Shopping Center. Now, the campaign incentive is to be found in the partner stores in 133 cities in Romania.

The idea of the campaign was outlined within the project “8 hours overtime to a good cause” of the Community Foundation Bucharest, which has gathered for a work meeting, professionals in many areas along with NGOs.

*8573 is the number of vehicles adapted and approved for the passengers and the disabled drivers in Romania. The number refers to January 2012 – July 2021 and is provided by the Romanian Automotive Register at the Motivation Romania Foundation request.