"Accessible Adventures: On the Road to Inclusion"

"Accessible Adventures: On the Road to Inclusion"

We're absolutely thrilled to have you here and excited to share our mission with you. Welcome to a space where your support has the power to create tangible change in the lives of individuals with mobility challenges.

At Open Country, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to experience life to the fullest, regardless of their mobility limitations. That's why we've embarked on this journey to provide a Wheelchair Accessible Minibus that will bring freedom, accessibility and inclusivity to all.  

Paralympian Champion Hannah Cockroft OBE, agrees:

"Yorkshire has incredible outdoor spaces that everyone should have the opportunity to appreciate and enjoy. Open Country are ensuring that Yorkshire's beauty really can be explored by everyone, by making those spaces accessible. For many people though, transport is the biggest barrier to accessing these areas and Open Country removes that by providing travel and activities. Any money raised can help these days go ahead and help everyone in Yorkshire have equal access to everything that our County has to offer".  

Our timetable of outdoor activities ensures that there is something for everyone. We run five evening Tandem Clubs where disabled back riders can experience the thrill of cycling fully supported by a volunteer front rider.

Many of the back riders have visual impairments so would not be able to safely ride a bike without the support of Open Country. We also have wheelchair tandems and electric tandems so that everyone can be included.
As well as our Tandem Clubs, we have a choice of Walking Groups offering different walks to suit the different needs of our members. Up hill and down dale, we support everybody to have a great day out. We are able to guide our visually impaired members with the help of our amazing volunteers and we always try to enjoy a café stop en route so friends can catch up with each other.

For our more energetic members, we have teams who carry out conservation work to help guard against the threats faced by nature at the present time. We dig ponds, bash balsam, plant trees and mow meadows, all with the aim of protecting habitats and encouraging biodiversity. As well as the physical work involved, our members learn about the environment and how we can help to protect it.

For all of these activities and more, we need our wheelchair accessible minibuses to transport people, and sometimes equipment, to the outdoor venue. Safety and reliability is obviously our main concern when transporting our vulnerable members to and from the site of the activity.

Minibuses age in time and become unfit for purpose. We currently need to replace a minibus which is ten years old and is life expired. We need to raise £53,000 in total and we have £35,000 left to raise. This is obviously a vast sum of money which is why we are asking for your help. If you believe in what we do and would like to play your part in making sure we can carry on doing it, then please donate to this great cause. Big or small, every donation we receive will go towards us reaching our goal. We have some great rewards on offer which is our way of saying thank you for your help.

     Visit our website Open Country or Email [email protected]

                                  We would love to hear from you.