Skip to Content

Awards

2005 Filmer Award

Chris Patton, the recipient of this year’s “Rob and Julie Filmer Award”, was interviewed on SABC Africa this morning by Peter Ndoro.

What a great interview and our congrats to Chris! Chris, who works for South African National Parks received this year’s award for his ongoing efforts to making our natural areas in South Africa accessible to people with disabilities. In particular, Chris has worked tirelessly to ensure that our National Parks are accessible to all South Africans regardless of their ability. Eco-Access salutes Chris! The award was handed over to Chris by South African hero, Sibusiso Vilane, the first African to summit Mt Everest!

Comments from Rob and Julie Filmer – Eco-Access

Last night we attended the Rob and Julie Filmer Awards presented by Eco-Access in Midrand and the winner this year is our friend and colleague in conservation Chris Patton.

Chris was recognised for his work in bringing people with disabilities to the National Parks in so many ways and sensitising National Parks to the needs of people with disabilities. Heartiest congratulations to Chris on this wonderful achievement.

About Eco-Access

It was founded in 1994 by Rob and Julie Filmer to champion the rights of disabled people to access the natural environment. Rob is a blind conservationist who worked as a ranger in Mpumalanga (then the Eastern Transvaal) before losing his sight through diabetes. The organisation has also combined this objective with a focus on addressing the high levels of disempowerment and segregation experienced by disabled children. Consequently Eco-Access’s ultimate objective has been to use access to the natural environment as a medium to empower both disabled and non-disabled people, specifically children, by allowing them to participate in an interactive learning process called “Twinning” (where for example a sighted child is twinned with a blind child on a nature trail).

Eco-Access is looking for support and funding for all the programs that it runs. If you or your organisation would like to explore the possibility of developing a partnership with Eco-Access, please contact Rob or Julie on 011 477 3676 or email at [email protected].

2003 Filmer Award

South African National Parks was honoured at the 2003 Rob Filmer Awards for enabling people with disabilities to access the natural environment.

The awards are hosted annually by Eco-Access, the country’s leading environmental/disability organisation, and were held at the Sandton Convention Centre on World Environment Day in June 2003. Tourism Director Glenn Phillips accepted the award on behalf of SANParks. Chris Patton also received a special achievement award for his contribution to getting people with disabilities into the parks.

SANParks received the award due to cumulative efforts that have been made throughout the organisation to make the parks accessible to all visitors regardless of their physical, sensory and mental ability. Most parks host accommodation that has been converted to enable access by the mobility impaired, while many other facilities have ramps, firm pathways, accessible ablutions and other enabling features. SANParks Chief Executive annually sponsors visits to the parks by groups of school children with disabilities, free of any accommodation and conservation charges. Of particular acclaim were the PPC Cement-Discovery Trail at Addo Elephant National Park (a wonderful combination of park, private sector and volunteer honorary ranger interaction) and the Penguin Boardwalk at Boulders Beach, Cape Peninsula National Park received special mention as outstanding facilities, while the disability pages on the SANParks website were held as one of the most comprehensive disability registers anywhere.

In accepting the awards, it was conceded that while there are many wonderful accessibility successes in the organisation, there are still many ongoing challenges ahead to ensure that the parks are truly accessible to all people and hence the ‘pride and joy of all South Africans’. The awards were featured in the Sunday press and was also flighted on SABC2’s 50/50 on Sunday evening.