New Charitable Association Aims to Improve Access For All to Verbier
A new charitable organisation ‘Verbier4All’ has been launched with the aim of working towards providing access to all of the many activities that take place in Verbier and the mountains that surround it.
By providing access to the necessary equipment and trained ‘buddies,’ Verbier4All aims to ensure that anyone, regardless of physical or visual deficit, can access the mountains all year round.
Verbier4All has already received the backing of Téléverbier which is now actively planning to make its infrastructures more user-friendly for people with a physical or visual deficit, with some improvements will already be apparent this summer.
Verbier4All is the result of a long-cherished dream of Valérie Vaucher and Annick Meystre.
Valérie Vaucher, who has extensive experience of running sporting organisations, has two children, one of whom has a genetic neurodegenerative disease. Annick Meystres is a well-known expert in the field of paraplegic sport in Switzerland and runs DéfiSports Association with her husband Serge.
After meeting Bethan Drinkall, a specialist neurological physiotherapist and the chair and founder of adaptive ski charity, Ski4All Wales, they decided that the moment was right to put their combined expertise, experience and love for Verbier to work.
With the addition of the Belgian father of a disabled skier, the association’s composition truly reflects Verbier’s international identity, with members from Switzerland, Britain, and Belgium, making this a truly cross-border undertaking.
Verbier4All plans to establish a library of adaptive equipment based in the heart of Verbier for the legitimate use of all for a nominal charge designed to cover maintenance and repairs.
The association also aims to facilitate the creation of and access to a pool of qualified ‘buddies.’
It is the aim of Verbier4All’s founders that the association be staffed entirely by volunteers and all funds raised go directly to support the association’s activities.
The next few months will see Verbier4All fundraising to purchase equipment for this winter.
