As the first municipality in the federal state of Hesse, Hanau declared an “assistance dog friendly municipality” on 13.07.2022 to actively support the important access rights of assistance dogs.
“We want to be a role model as a city and welcome people with assistance dogs in our city. This is an important sign of inclusion in action in our city.
We don’t want to exclude anyone, neither when going to the authorities nor in their free time, neither in the Kulturforum, nor in our museums or in other cultural and leisure venues,” said Mayor Axel Weiss-Thiel (SPD) when he placed the first sticker on the door to Hanau City Hall.
Also Mehmet Kandemir, chairman of the Hanau Marketing Vereinsin which numerous retailers and service providers in the city are organised, supports Hanau’s initiative: “Retailers in Hanau have also been made aware of the issue and are joining in. The retailers we have reached so far have reacted very positively and will also put stickers on their entrance doors welcoming people with assistance dogs.”
The press conference was scheduled for 11 am. Even before that, we had been able to talk in detail about the topic with a reporter from Hessischer Rundfunk in the café who was thirsty for knowledge. Many Hanau newspapers had already reported in advance, and the FAZ was also on site with interest and questions.
RTL Hessen came for the door sticker at the town hall and then it was spontaneously decided to turn the formal press conference into a city walk. Various shops and the Kulturforum were labelled with the sticker, and already in the evening the enterprising marketing association had to reorder stickers – over a hundred had been applied by the committed shops!
We were particularly pleased with the detailed, carefully researched and well-written article in the Hanauer Boten:
The “Assistance Dog Welcome” campaign was made possible by funding from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and the Aktion Mensch.
