Investigating the status of people with special needs access to urban space and effect on voluntary activity in Mashhad-Iran Case study: Educational-Charity Complex Rehabilitation

The creation of urban space so that all segments of society can benefit from its facilities, provides opportunities for community participation and social activity and prevents their social isolation. In this study, we investigate the status of people with special needs access of urban space and its impact on volunteer activity in Mashhad. The approach of the present study is qualitative-quantitative and data collection tools, in-depth individual interviews and researcher-made questionnaires based on theories, prior research and qualitative sector paradigm model. The sample age range is 15-40 years and the sample was selected in qualitative part through snowball method and interviewed with 15 people whit special needs and in the quantitative section, a whole number of members of the eductional charity complex rehabilitation in Mashhad. The number of respondents is 137. The categories extracted from the qualitative sector paradigm model showed the additional pressure that people with special needs have to indure in irban space and in their personal and administrative affairs. People with special needs have difficulty accessing in various parts of the urban space such as banks, offices, parks, sidewalks, transportation, educational places, etc. Therefore, we extracted from the qualitative part of the research, with the aim of investigating the access of people with special needs to an unobstructed environment in urban space, the variables of accessibility in workplaces, public transport system, office space, organizational and public space,  educational places and residence for statistical analysis in the quantitative section.  The results of Pearson correlation test and linear regression show that the level of accessibility of urban space to people with special needs has an impact on the accessibility of them to voluntary activities. But the frequency distribution of responses indicates that 70% of respondents rated the urban spece access medium downward.