A 13-year-old Guide from Warrington who is blind and uses a wheelchair has launched a petition to get more wheelchair-accessible play equipment into parks.
Currently Poppy Culpin is unable to play alongside her three younger sisters at the park because the play structures aren’t accessible for wheelchair users
She was inspired to make a difference and get her voice heard in a bid to earn her ‘Campaigning’ badge at Guides.
As part of her work towards the badge, Poppy has launched a petition asking the Government to provide more funding to local authorities to spend on wheelchair-accessible play equipment in parks.
She is calling for wheelchair swings, wheelchair roundabouts, in-ground trampolines and lower basketball hoops to be installed so that people with accessibility needs can play at the park.
Poppy said: “Going to the park makes me feel sad because there are no accessible swings, roundabouts and trampolines. I sit there bored. It would make me happy if people signed my petition.”
Poppy’s petition needs 10,000 signatures to get a response from the Government, and 100,000 signatures for it to be considered for a parliamentary debate.
The Campaigning badge encourages Guides – the section of Girlguiding for girls aged 10 to 14-years-old – to try and get their voices heard by people in power, and make change happen.
Poppy’s mum Carly Culpin said: “We’re very proud that Poppy has taken the initiative to advocate for something she feels so strongly about and that would help others. She’s excited to make a difference and it would mean such a lot if she could play with her sisters at our local park.”
Poppy’s Personal Assistant, Louise Helsby, has supported Poppy for the last seven years and has played a key role in helping with her park campaign.
“We definitely don’t know 10,000 people but the power of community might be able to help us!” said Louise.
“This issue affects so many families and it would be amazing if Poppy could do something to help them all. She would find that incredibly empowering.
“Everybody should be able to go to their local park and play. There is a park five minutes from Poppy’s house but there is nothing for her to do there. It’s not interesting or fun for her which means she quickly gets bored and doesn’t want to go out, which affects the whole family.”
Louise says there a couple of parks within driving distance of Poppy’s home in Warrington that have either a nest swing or wheelchair-accessible roundabout.
“You shouldn’t have to drive for half an hour to find one piece of wheelchair-friendly equipment, or for it to be a novelty to find somewhere that Poppy play,” added Louise.
Poppy joined Girlguiding as a Rainbow (for girls aged 4-7) at the age of six and has not looked back since. She later progressed through Brownies (for girls aged 7-10) and is now a Guide.
The only fully wheelchair-accessible park that Poppy has been able to visit is in the grounds of a special school that Louise teaches at in Salford. It is a 30-minute drive away and is not open to the public.
1 Comment
This sounds like a great campaign that as Chair of Warrington Visually impaired people would like to support in some way.
We operate as an independent Charity and operate at a large loss but we have a long term objective of developing a younger cohort with activities which would have to come out if fund raising and new partners.
As a former councillor I know how hard it was to get two playground facilities at Peel Hall led by Bob Hesketh Jones only to see the older playground trashed within weeks. I worked with Angus Lord to get new facilities for the young at Enfield Park. It has survived largely as has the young one in Peel Hall.
So it would be great to help and we are.in the process of setting up practical facilities for a younger WVIP section a working group of ten is being set up by our WBC VIP colleague but by young we had envisaged teens our average age used to be 70 so it would be a whole new cohort with all the protection issues that brings with it.