Among the many customers that enjoy going to SM are the physically-challenged who shop together, eat out together, and have fun with their families and friends.
At the mall, they are able to move around with ease, and enjoy the experience just like no other customers, thanks to its handicap-friendly facilities and personnel. With SM’s continuous efforts to improve their service levels to their customers, the environment created can be called non-handicapping.
SM was recently given an opportunity to share it’s work in providing anon-handicapping environment in its shopping malls during the workshop on Empowerment of People with Disabilities and Barrier Free society through Networking and Collaboration held in Bangkok, Thailand.
During the joint undertaking of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific Development Center on Disability (APCP), SM Shopping Malls president Annie Garcia provided a good and clear understanding of SM’s way of providing a non-handicapping environment for its shoppers.
Given that realization, SM mapped out a strategy to become a non handicapping environment. These include the following:
- Handicap friendly facilities. “Our architect and design teams place greater emphasis on implementing accessibility codes, making certain that the requirements are incorporated into the design of every new shopping mall we construct because we want a safe environment for the handicapped, “says Ms. Garcia.
- Training Sessions. Regular training sessions are held for managers, staff and tenant employees on how to assist persons with disabilities and serve them better. To make these sessions more meaningful, resource persons from various organizations are invited to share information about physically-challenged (the deaf and blind) and mentally challenged (autism, epilepsy and Down syndrome).
- Information Drive. Apart from training its employees, SM has also started to build awareness so that shoppers may understand and lend their support to accessibility by keeping the handicapped in elevators, lifts and ramps through proper installation of signs.
The SM Supermarket and Hypermarket outlets have established priority check out lanes for the handicapped and senior citizens. The malls have also showcased special talents of the physically handicapped in their shows.
- Breastfeeding. Through its breastfeeding centers, mothers can now shop and feed their babies in clean, secure and comfortable environments.
SM has also been a recipient of the Apolinario Mabini Award as a handicapped friendly mall.