As part of our commitment to Puerto Rico and the revitalization of its unique assets, on July 2021 Foundation for Puerto Rico participated in the reopening of “Mar Sin Barreras” (Sea Without Barriers) located in Balneario La Monserrate, in the municipality of Luquillo. This project was originally inaugurated in 1995 after Rosimar Hernandez, a disabled young woman, created a plan to facilitate access to the beach for people with limited mobility and disabilities. This incredible project aimed to break down the barriers for people with disabilities so they too could enjoy the pristine waters of the Puerto Rican beaches.
This initiative has been a labor of love between many; there have been many helping hands such as volunteers, community leaders, different nonprofits, the Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, the municipality of Luquillo, among others. They worked hard while planning, cleaning, painting, and getting everything ready for the reopening. Mar Sin Barreras includes a beautiful community mural designed and painted by CROMAPOLIS, bathrooms, showers, and over 50 handicapped-only designated parking spots. The area has ramps, changing rooms (with special lifts, seats, beds, etc.), floating devices, lifeguards, and amphibious chairs that allow people with disabilities to enter the beach by themselves. Marissa Jimenez Santorini, the senator of the District of Carolina, invites people to take care of this beautiful place that has opened again to ensure the newly revitalized facilities last for many years to come.
To make this all possible, donations of more than $30,000 in federal funds from the Foundation for Puerto Rico’s EDA-funded Bottom Up Destination Recovery Initiative have been invested into this project, and this is without counting the incredible “sweat equity” put in by so many others. This allowed us to be an instrumental part of this process, which facilitates the use of the beach by a community that might not otherwise enjoy it to the fullest.
Mar Sin Barreras is a beautiful community project that has brought so much joy to many families and people with disabilities. According to a 2020 report from the Disability Travel market, in 2018-2019, “more than 27 million travelers with disabilities took a total of 81 million trips, spending $58.7 billion on their own travel alone (up from $34.6 billion in 2015).” With this type of increase in travel of people with disabilities, it’s imperative to develop more assets that are equipped to host them appropriately and cater to their needs. In that sense, Mar Sin Barreras has all the potential to become a popular destination, and our hope is that through appropriate co management between the government and the community, this initiative will continue to grow and develop for years to come. The use of these facilities is free of cost and a $5 fee for parking, and we’re already hard at work identifying where we can help replicate a similar project in a different region across Puerto Rico.
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