As part of its ongoing #Festival Cares initiatives to give back to the community, the Mall celebrated Accessibility Awareness Day with a range of inclusive activities for kids in collaboration with Qatar Foundation’s Ability Friendly Program

Doha, Qatar – 31, May 2022: Doha Festival City, Qatar's one and only choice for shopping, dining, and entertainment, promoted Accessibility Awareness through hosting children with special needs to enjoy an afternoon packed with fun activities at the mall’s exciting entertainment attractions in cooperation with Qatar Foundation’s Ability Friendly Program as part of the Mall’s #Festival Cares Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

The Mall invited children with special needs to enjoy the mall’s dining and entertainment offerings. The planned activities included a unique fun experience at Angry Birds World owned and operated by Leisure, a leading entertainment company in Qatar located at Doha Festival City. The children also enjoyed meals provided by Carluccio’s as well as coffee and desserts provided by Tim Horton’s. They went home with a generous gift bag provided by Toys R Us. 
Doha Festival City welcomes everyone and takes all measures needed to ensure a pleasant mall experience for all. Accessibility and inclusivity are considered core to the Mall’s operation, and it has put forth multiple facilities and accessibility options that help enhance an independent mall-going experience for visitors with special needs. 

The Mall’s accessibility facilities have been designed to ease the mobility of wheelchair users and ensure their smooth access to goods and services. Parking spots for people with movement disabilities are available near all key entrances to the mall. Regular checks are conducted to ensure the elimination of all obstacles such as shopping carts and maintenance equipment from parking spaces and gates. Furthermore, the Mall has taken additional measures to ease the accessibility experience, including maintained curb ramps and sidewalks to prevent large cracks and uneven surfaces from forming. Accessibility-friendly escalators, elevators, and ramps facilitate access to into the mall and within its premises. Special pathways for wheelchair use are available at the entrance and doors that allow sufficient space for them to rotate. 

In addition, the mall supports elevators braille buttons and provides wheelchairs for use within the mall with full support to those who use them.  There are fully equipped spacious toilets dedicated for people with disabilities, and clear signs indicating the location of these toilets. The toilets are equipped with handles and flushing levers reachable for persons in wheelchairs. The Mall also provides Kids’ wristbands to be filled with contact details of caregivers of the children with special needs, to be reunited with their caregivers in case they got lost inside the mall. 

Commenting on the initiative, Robert Hall, Festival City’s General Manager, said: “We are delighted to welcome children from Qatar Foundation’s Ability Friendly Program and celebrate Accessibility Awareness Day together.  We spare no efforts in making Doha Festival City accessible and welcoming for all visitors. Our facilities and services are designed to secure a pleasant experience for everyone. We value our partnership with Qatar Foundation’s Ability Friendly Program, and hopefully this first-time collaboration will be the beginning of many to offer children with special needs an empowering and memorable mall experience.”

Qatar Foundation’s Ability Friendly Program supports people of all abilities to engage in sporting and developmental activities. The Program caters for people with autism, learning difficulties, visual Impairments, hearing Impairments, and physical Impairments. It offers specialized camps, and cricket, football, playball, and swimming classes moderated by specialized coaches in classes designed to accommodate the various abilities of children and adults and their individual needs.
 
Doha Festival City’s #Festival Cares programme includes continuous activities and initiatives that aim at giving back to society and supporting charity in Qatar as part of the Mall’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme. The programme aims at building and nurturing meaningful relationships with the Mall’s internal and external stakeholders such as retailers, shoppers, and employees, local government authorities, and communities, and form close partnership with local non-profit organisations.
In line with the preventative measures set out by the State of Qatar to limit the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), and to ensure a safe shopping environment for all, Doha Festival City commits itself to continuous necessary health and safety measures throughout the mall. This includes a thorough mall disinfection treatment on a weekly basis, robust cleaning, and sanitization operations during mall trading hours, 127 hand sanitizing stations installed in the areas that have commonly touched surfaces.