BNP Paribas in Greece participated in the creation of a special program, designed to assist vision impaired people to visit the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. First of its kind in Greece, the initiative provides a tactile tour for the permanent collections of the museum.  The visitors are given the opportunity to  perceive the objects by touching them while listening to the audio guide with their headphones. In addition, there is also a leaflet in Braille.

Although this might exist elsewhere in the world, it is the first time that a museum in Greece is rendered accessible to vision impaired people.  This pioneer initiative aims at opening the collections to a part of the public that could not visit the Museum before.
“We created this special program because we want to open our Museum to all audiences. We believe that the cultural Patrimony kept in our rooms belongs to all, and our ambition is to make it accessible to everybody” says Anastasia Lazaridou, Deputy Director of the Museum.

Among other initiatives that were previously supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation, in cooperation with the Byzantine & Christian Museum in Athens, is the renovation of several frescos dating back from the fifteenth century. Now completely renovated, the frescos originally come from a small monastery on the Leucada Island. They will be available to the public in spring 2009, after the Ministry of Culture officially opens the wing of the museum which will host them.