Inazio Nieva, 26, lives with cerebral palsy, a disability that has not hindered his pursuit of goals. He is an advocate for functional diversity and a social integrator, as well as an influencer with 150,000 followers on TikTok and over 100,000 on Instagram. In just a few years, he has become a prominent voice for the community, aiming to normalize disability, denounce injustices, and demonstrate that more can always be done to guarantee the rights of these individuals.
His persistence led the Bilbao City Council to approve a pilot project in January to include pictograms on Bilbobus shelters. Nieva argues that pictograms facilitate understanding for people with intellectual disabilities. He also met with the Bizkaia Provincial Council to advance towards more accessible transportation.
“"Ensuring that a locality is completely accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is an almost impossible mission. Important steps are being taken, but each disability is a world, and even I can have doubts about whether something is accessible or not."
On Bilbao's Gran Vía, Inazio identified the first incompatible element for visually impaired individuals: the lack of acoustic signals at bus stops. He suggests implementing NaviLens codes, already in use at some Euskotren stations, such as the one near San Mamés. These codes provide spoken information about the stop and the next train, detected simply by passing a phone over the area.
Nieva asserts that inclusion extends beyond sports or work, and that simple elements like urban signage can pose obstacles. He points out that typography, sentence length, or a lack of cognitive accessibility make some signs difficult to understand. Furthermore, many waste containers in Bilbao are not adapted for wheelchairs, and he believes the number of adapted taxis needs to increase. According to Fekoor, the federation for people with physical or organic disabilities in Bizkaia, municipalities must have a percentage of adapted licenses, and in towns with over 3,000 inhabitants, at least one vehicle must be available 24 hours a day.
Another barrier Inazio encountered near San Mamés was the inability to use bicycles due to his lack of balance. He advocates for tricycles, similar to those the Bizkaia Provincial Council has already added to its public bicycle fleet, to enable him to commute to work. Concluding his tour, Inazio states that Bilbao is one of the most accessible localities in Bizkaia, but much work remains to adapt the city to every type of disability.
