How we’re making RZSS more accessible and what’s next for 2025

With 2025 well underway, we thought it would be the perfect time to update on the Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) work across the charity. Over the past twelve months, we’ve been busy supporting communities and removing actual and perceived barriers making our sites, nature and our work more accessible. This work is a whole team undertaking, with HUGE efforts going into getting us closer to achieving our pledges to create stronger connections with nature for more than a million people and enable more than 100 communities to better protect nature.

From toilet seats to enclosure design, outreach programmes and partnerships, DEIB is part of everything we do. We want to share with you some of the improvements we have made so far and let you in on some of our future plans.

For our visitors

We’re working to make our sites as accessible for our visitors as possible. There is free admission for carers, and anyone visiting should be aware that there is a Changing Places toilet at Edinburgh Zoo (with one coming soon at Highland Wildlife Park) for people who may be limited in their own mobility and need equipment to help them. 

Mobility vehicles and wheelchairs are available on loan, including all-terrain wheelchairs at Highland Wildlife Park. These are also accessibility maps and access information, which you can view in our accessibility statements (Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park) and through the AccessAble website. 

Over the past year we have improved our sensory bags and maps, introduced social stories (step-by-step guides to help those with additional needs) and continued our membership of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Scheme. Our assistance dog information has been updated, and both staff and volunteers have been trained to be sighted guides to support our blind and partially sighted visitors. 

At Highland Wildlife Park, completion of Scotland’s Wildlife Discovery Centre has helped us to engage and include even more groups and communities in our work. For example, our relationship with the University of the Highlands and Islands allows us to offer students who find formal education challenging the chance to develop life skills outside of the classroom in a way that works for them.

For our wider communities

None of our amazing work would be possible without our external partnerships and outreach initiatives, which have allowed us to support wider communities to engage and connect with nature.

We’ve been developing new partnerships, like with CEMVO Scotland, who work to build the capacity and sustainability of the ethnic minority voluntary sector and its communities. We’re also furthering our work in other areas, such as signing up to the LGBT Youth Scotland Charter alongside our ongoing representation at both Edinburgh Pride and Highland Pride. 

A further aspect of our expanding outreach work is with local care homes, which allows us to take our wildlife conservation charity to people who would not be able to access our sites otherwise. To find out more you can look at our Community Engagement webpages. 

Our work with the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity (ECHC) grows stronger every year, along with Cyrenians, Maggies, Alzheimer’s Scotland, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC), Black Scottish Adventurers and many more. 

For our staff

Of course, nothing we do would be possible without our staff and volunteers and their dedication to our charity. It is important that we can support, champion and celebrate everyone who works for RZSS now and in the future. 

We’re a Disability Confident Employer and have menopause and LGBTQ+ champions to help ensure everyone can feel comfortable being their authentic selves at work. We’re also sharing what we know, and learning from others, through our work with British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) and Scottish Environment Link.

For the future

With my appointment to the role of accessibility and inclusion manager, we’ll continue to improve on our DEIB work. There are already many exciting things in the pipeline for 2025, including new partnerships, physical changes to our sites, including new wayfinding signs and maps, and new resources to support our visitors, like downloadable symbols for visual timetables. 

There will be more outreach sessions to engage with those who may not be able to make it to our sites, while onsite educational sessions and accessible events will provide more visitors with opportunities to connect with nature. A new accessible welcome centre will be opening at Highland Wildlife Park this year to match the new buildings of 2024, providing additional facilities such as a Changing Places toilet. 

Our upcoming Girls Do STEM sessions will highlight the brilliant women in our conservation charity and empower girls to enter STEM fields. We’re also increasing our Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) offering, focussing on the non-academic jobs in RZSS that are vital for making our conservation charity tick. We’ll be part of the Equally Safe at Work programme, which supports employers in advancing gender equality and preventing violence against women. 

And in summer, we’ll be playing a part in celebrating and championing the LGBTQ+ community by supporting the launch of a new Pride festival. More on this soon!

2024 was a great year and we are proud of what we achieved and there is SO much more to come in 2025.

If you have any questions or ideas of what could make RZSS more accessible, please get in touch via accessibility@rzss.org.uk - every insight helps us to make things better.

Amy Cox 
Accessibility and inclusion manager