Accessibility in the News—8/24/18.

This week’s news covers the lawsuit against Apple for website accessibility and renewed accessibility efforts by Google. It also covers parking, housing, and various municipal challenges impacting wheelchair users and others with disabilities.

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AITN Quote of the Week

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!

― Audrey Hepburn

All Wheels Up currently is the only organization in the world crash

testing wheelchair tie-downs and wheelchairs for commercial flights.

National News (U.S.)

Legally Blind North Texas Teen Receives $10K Glasses That Let Her See

August 14, 2018 | Source: CBS

A successful crowdfunding effort came together just in time, as a North Texas teen who is legally blind, will be able to see as she heads back to school. Two weeks ago Shea Busby shared her story, asking North Texas to help her raise money for a pricey pair of glasses that would allow her to see. It’s been almost two years since Busby was told she’d never see clearly again. “I had to accept that because there’s nothing you do,” she said. Shes was diagnosed with Stargardt, a rare disease that caused part of her retina to deteriorate. It’s estimated to affect about one in every 10,000 people…

1 In 4 U.S. Adults Has A Disability, CDC Says

August 16, 2018 | Source: CBS & Daily Mail

Prevalence of Disabilities and Health Care Access by Disability Status and Type Among Adults

August 17, 2018 | Source: CDC

New government research finds 61 million U.S. adults – about 1 in 4 Americans – have a disability that impacts a major part of their life. According to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most common disability type, mobility, affects 1 in 7 adults. With age, disability becomes more common, affecting approximately 2 in 5 adults age 65 and older. The most common type of disability in younger adults is cognitive disability…

Crumbling Sidewalks Become a Legal Battleground

August 16, 2018 | Source: City Lab

A crack in the sidewalk can be a dangerous thing. Just last month, a woman in Atlanta made the news when she injured herself after tripping on a hole in the pavement and needed paramedics to respond. It prompted the latest in a years-long string of complaints against the conditions of sidewalks in the city, where it’s not hard to find missing pavement, crumbling curbs, cracks, or buckles. These conditions present hurdles for anybody who encounters them. For people in wheelchairs, they can be insurmountable…

Dating with a disability: ‘I don’t feel like a burden … Why should I act like one?’

August 16, 2018 | Source: Kansas City Times

When Kirby Hough meets a man for a first date, she deceives him until she believes he is worthy of the truth. He will walk into the bar or restaurant and find Hough already there, oblivious to his entrance, her almond-shaped brown eyes staring into the iPhone in her palm. “They probably think I’m scrolling Instagram,” she says with a laugh. Eventually, he will realize she’s “not paying attention,” walk over to her and utter her name or perhaps tap her on the shoulder — just as Hough wants him to do…

Smarter Balanced Making the Grade

August 16, 2018 | Source: Language Magazine

The Smarter Balanced suite of accessibility resources provide the ability to customize the testing experience to individual student needs. There are several supports for both the ELA and the mathematics tests that provide linguistic support for all students, including English learners (ELs). The Smarter Balanced Usability, Accessibility, and Accommodations Guidelines committee annually reviews these resources and associated policies to ensure that the resources meet the current needs of membership…

This Lawsuit Reveals How Unfriendly the Skies Can Be for Travelers With Disabilities

August 16, 2018 | Source: The Mighty

On Tuesday, the Paralyzed Veterans of America filed suit against the U.S. Transportation Department to force the implementation of regulations that require single-aisle planes to have wheelchair accessible lavatories. These regulations, originally outlined in the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, have been stalled ever since, with only wide-body jets required to have accessible restrooms since 1990. This lawsuit and the changes it seeks to compel are long overdue — but they don’t go far enough…

Developing bionics: How IBM is adapting mind-control for accessibility

August 17, 2018 | Source: The Next Web

What if there was a way to give everyone suffering from conditions like paralysis or Locked-in syndrome the means to operate prosthetic devices and tech gadgets using mind-control? Well, there is – or at least, there will be.

IBM Research recently developed an end-to-end proof-of-concept for a method of controlling an off-the-shelf robotic arm with a brain-computer interface built using a take-home EEG monitor. To accomplish this, the researchers developed AI to interpret the data from the EEG monitor as commands for the robotic arm…

Designing for Autonomous Accessibility

August 17, 2018 | Source: The Viodi View

“Our focus is on making sure that transportation of all kinds is available for people with disabilities and older adults and their caregivers,” explains Carol Wright Kenderdine, Co-Director of the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NADTC). A joint venture of the Easterseals and the U.S. D.O.T.’s Federal Transit Administration, the NADTC works with transit agencies to improve transportation accessibility, whether “walking, biking, driving, and transitioning from driving, as well as fixed-route public transit, dial-a-ride services, volunteer transportation programs, taxis and other shared ride options.“…

Music on the other hand: Guitarist turns affliction into vision

August 17, 2018 | Source: Denton Record-Chronicle

Billy McLaughlin figures his long relationship with the acoustic guitar might have been inevitable. The Minnesota winters were long when McLaughlin was a kid, and the internet hadn’t been built. “So you have nine kids in one house,” McLaughlin said. “At bedtime, mom and dad both would sing us to bed. Both my mom and dad had beautiful voices. When I was 5, my oldest sibling was 15. She started playing the orchestral harp. I’m talking about the big harp. The pedals, the strings, everything…

Mom on a Mission to Create Playground Accessibility Database

August 17, 2018 | Source: NECN

Going to playgrounds is a popular activity, but picking one to visit is not always easy. One local mom is on a mission to change that with the help of volunteers. Dawn Oates is the founder of the Play Brigade, an organization dedicated to inclusion that was inspired by her daughter, Harper, who uses a wheelchair. Their projects involve all kinds of inclusive play, such as an upcoming accessible 5K, but they are always looking to do more. Oates has been instrumental in making playgrounds more accessible, but now, she’s creating a tool she believes will be useful for all parents…

Be careful what you believe about screen time making you blind

August 17, 2018 | Source: The Verge

If you believe the headlines that have been circulating over the past few weeks, staring at screens is ruining our eyes. “Blue light from phones, tablets could accelerate blindness and hurt vision, study finds,” USA Today declared. Only, that particular study didn’t actually test the blue light that comes out of screens — and it didn’t look at the light’s effects on actual eyeballs. We’ve been through this before: there is some evidence that blue light can disrupt your sleep schedule. And some research suggests blue light might damage rat retinas…

When A Co-Worker Said I Shouldn’t Miss Work Because I ‘Don’t Feel Good’

August 17, 2018 | Source: Huffington Post

I stood across the kitchen from the person who spoke these words, dumbfounded, as she patronizingly chided me for having missed several days in a row of work due to a flare-up of a chronic, debilitating health condition — a condition, I would like to add, for which I have ADA accommodations with my workplace already set. I know I have a disability. My employer knows I have a disability. The person who uttered these words to me knows, somewhere in her mind, that I have a disability…

How Google has stepped up its efforts to makes its own tech more accessible to the disabled

August 18, 2018 | Source: CNBC

Homework is a drag for any high schooler, but for the class of 2006’s Laura Palmaro Allen, even starting an assignment required a laborious, multistep process. She and her family had to strip her textbooks from their bindings, run the pages through a high speed scanner, and digitize them — all before she could use text-to-speech software to actually ingest her history lesson or reading exercise. Allen has limited vision because of a rare eye condition called Choroidal Osteomas: At the time, her school didn’t offer any easier ways to accommodate her…

Meme this: How a second-gen Filipino-American landed at the heart of Philly’s internet community

August 19, 2018 | Source: BillyPenn

Mikey Ilagan is that Philly guy everyone knows. Mark Zuckerburg comparison notwithstanding, Ilagan insists his plans for the future do not include founding a startup or launching a social networking platform. Instead, he plans to continue contributing to the online ecosystem by preaching the gospel of digital accessibility. What’s that mean in practice? “It’s thinking about accessibility from the perspective of code quality,” Ilagan said, “to make sure that accessibility and inclusion are compatible with the technology that you’re using.”…

Apple sued over claims website is inaccessible to visually impaired users

August 20, 2018 | Source: Apple Insider & Patently Apple & The Register & iDrop News

Apple has become the target of a new lawsuit, one that claims the iPhone producer’s website is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not being fully accessible to blind or visually-impaired consumers, due to the way the website itself is coded. Filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York on Sunday, the complaint from the plaintiff Himelda Mendez is said to be filed on behalf of other users in a similar accessibility situation. Apple is the sole defendant in the lawsuit…

Electric Wheelchairs – Adding Disability Friendly Accessibility Mobility for Disabled People

August 20, 2018 | Source: Time Square Chronicles

Physical disability is a tough situation to manage lifelong! The life of disabled patients is laden with challenges. One of the most crucial problems is that of mobility. It is where the electric or the motorized wheelchair comes in handy. It helps people with disabilities to move around from one place to the other, at an indoor setting. An electric or motorized wheelchair is also called a power chair. It’s a wheelchair with an inbuilt electric motor. It runs on the electric instead of manual power. It is perfect for people who find a manual wheelchair extremely limiting…

How you can help Gallatin become more inclusive for residents of all abilities

August 20, 2018 | Source: The Tennessean

Gallatin has some crosswalk signals too far from the sidewalk, counter tops too high for someone in a wheelchair to reach, and even doors too narrow or heavy for people with disabilities. And the city wants to know other improvements it needs to make to be more accessible for everyone. “When we get those barriers, we’ll learn how to fix those barriers and we’ll start appropriating money every year in our budget,” ADA Coordinator and risk manager JamiAnn Hannah said…

Researchers Develop Reprogrammable Braille in Hopes of Making Books More Accessible for Blind Readers

August 20, 2018 | Source: Slate

In recent years, it has become easier for blind and low-sight users to read text from computers and tablets, thanks to advances in accessibility technology that have greatly improved the standards for refreshable Braille displays. But physical Braille books have lagged behind. An average book takes up several volumes of thick Braille paper, which are a pain to carry around. For example, the Braille translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix spans 14 volumes and takes up a whopping 1,000 pages of Braille paper, compared with the standard printed version, which is a single 766-page volume…

Manhattan US Attorney Announces Settlement with New York City Over ADA Violations

August 20, 2018 | Source: Lawfuel

NYC agrees to bring Rikers Island into ADA compliance — even as it plans jails’ costly shutdown

August 21, 2018 | Source: New York Daily News

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that the United States has reached a settlement with the City of New York, the New York City Department of Correction, and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation to resolve its investigation into violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under the agreement, the City, DOC, and HHC must provide inmates with disabilities equal access to services, programs, and activities by, among other things, timely providing inmates with needed accommodations, including auxiliary aids and services, assistive devices, and medical equipment…

Texas Saved Billions Cutting Special Education. Now the Bill Comes Due

August 21, 2018 | Source: Bloomberg

Texas’s 5.4 million students are returning to school amid the usual scramble for textbooks, lockers and desks. The state is also facing a huge problem of its own creation: how to find, evaluate and properly teach as many as 200,000 students wrongly denied special education or overlooked as it sought to limit spending for the nation’s fastest-growing school population. And then there’s the question of how Texas, under orders from the U.S. government, will pay for it all…

Businesses aren’t paying attention to parking for people with disabilities

August 22, 2018 | Source: Colorado Springs Independent

Tim Ashley pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant on Nevada Avenue to have dinner with friends. But when he realized a tractor-trailer was blocking the business’ only two handicapped-accessible parking spaces, and there was nowhere else in the lot to park his van and roll his wheelchair down the ramp, all he and his companions could do was leave. “There were six of us, so they lost a pretty good check,” he says. It’s an experience that’s all too familiar for those with disabilities…

Accessible Public Transportation and Housing, a Need for People with Disabilities in Major Cities

August 22, 2018 | Source: Inter Press Service

Even though over six billion people—nearly one billion of whom will have disabilities— are expected to live in urban centres by 2050, many of the world’s major urban cities have a long way to go before their infrastructure becomes inclusive for people with disabilities. As the world’s population ages, in 2050, more than 20 percent will be 60 or older, making urban accessibility an urgent need, according to a report by the Disability Inclusive and Accessible Urban Development Network (DIAUD)…

Visually impaired voter said ADA compliant ballot machine ruined her early voting experience

August 23, 2018 | Source: First Coast News

Since early voting began in Duval County nearly 40 thousand have cast their ballots, both at the polls and in mail-in ballots. Susan Mason is visually impaired and the retired federal worker takes her right to vote seriously. “I am blind and I need assistance, either audible or braille to vote,” said Mason. The City of Jacksonville was sued in 2000-2001 over access for voters with disabilities. The city ended up buying new machines. Today the elections office uses AutoMark ADA-Compliant Ballot-Marking Devices; there are two in every polling station…

The ADA is being used to disenfranchise minority voters || Georgia County Fires Consultant Who Recommended Closing Almost All Its Polling Places

August 22, 2018 | Source: Think Progress & Newsweek &Human Rights Watch & NY Times || August 23, 2018 | Source: Huffington Post

A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The move sparked instant opposition from voting rights advocates, who have threatened legal action if Randolph County follows through with the plan. Activists are also scrambling to collect enough signatures to stop the effort before Friday, when the election board will make a final determination…

How To Have A Meaningful Conversation About Disability At Work

August 22, 2018 | Source: Forbes

If you have a disability, you very quickly come to understand that it is an issue most people don’t open up about at work. Sure, talking about your experience with chronic fatigue syndrome, depression or a learning disability such as dyslexia might happen behind closed doors. But in a larger setting? It’s still taboo. To say the silence millions keep each day is stifling is an understatement. Many people describe it as feeling like their true self has been hijacked and replaced, at least during working hours…

Pot for the People: New Bill Would Allow Federal Employees to Access Weed

August 23, 2018 | Source: Rolling Stone

As federal agencies actively recruit veterans, a new bill would allow government employees to legally get marijuana treatment that is proving helpful for PTSD and pain management. After losing his legs fighting with his Marine Corps unit in Afghanistan in 2010, Paul was put on a steady regimen of OxyContin, a potent, highly addictive and, back then, heavily prescribed opiate. After years of intense rehab — as soon as he was physically, mentally and emotionally strong enough — he weaned himself off a daily pharmaceutical cocktail in part by replacing those concentrated chemical compounds with consuming marijuana four to five times a week…

Home Depot to Pay $100K to Settle Illinois Disability Discrimination Lawsuit

August 23, 2018 | Source: Insurance Journal

Home Depot, the large national home improvement retailer, has agreed to pay a former employee $100,000 and provide other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC said Home Depot failed to provide an emergency break to an employee with irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia at its Peru, Illinois, store. Instead of accommodating the employee, Home Depot fired her for allegedly violating company policy by leaving her post unattended, the federal agency charged…

CDC Expands Autism Monitoring Efforts

August 23, 2018 | Source: Disability Scoop

For the first time, the government’s autism surveillance network will begin factoring the experiences of teenagers with the developmental disorder. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently seeking out research centers to participate in the next round of regular autism tracking efforts through its Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. Traditionally, the CDC has selected researchers at sites across the country to comb through health and educational records for 8-year-olds in their areas to assess how many qualify for an autism diagnosis…

Jack Fact — According to the NY Times, roughly four million Americans depend on wheelchairs and 11 million more use a cane, walker or crutches (estimates in a new unpublished study bring the numbers to 5.7 million and 15.7 million, respectively).

International News

Film explores experiences of Deaf community

August 16, 2018 | Source: Our Auckland- Australia

Members of the Auckland Deaf community have collaborated with local filmmakers to tell a story about Deaf culture in the Whau. A story of language alienation and friendship, The Village, follows Brandy, a young woman arriving at a Deaf school and experiencing the culture shock of full immersion into a sign language environment. The film is a fictionalized account based on the experiences of the many hearing impaired youth who grow up in verbal environments, who only later discover sign language…

Lack of affordable, accessible housing a ‘crisis’ says advocate

August 16, 2018 | Source: CBC- Canada

A new initiative aiming to create a database of accessible rental units is getting closer to completion. Judith Bayliss is working on the Home Base Project for the United Way and the PEI Council of People with Disabilities. “It was something that’s been necessary for a long, long time,” she said in an interview on Mainstreet P.E.I. Bayliss is now retired, but she worked at the council and said people living with disabilities were always looking for assistance in finding a place to live that would also suit their accessibility needs…

Major broadband providers ‘offering inadequate support to deaf customers’

August 17, 2018 | Source: uSwitch-UK

EE introduces new accessibility features for deaf customers

August 22, 2018 | Source: uSwitch-UK

Virgin Media and Sky have been singled out for offering the best service to broadband customers with hearing problems. However, a report by Cable.co.uk suggests many others are falling short, with BT, Vodafone and EE among those providing limited accessibility features on their websites. While broadband providers are required to offer features such as Next Generation Text Relay Services and third-party bill management, the report says they are not always up to date and fit for purpose…

Dare to be different: A look at Rudding Park

August 19, 2018 | Source: The Caterer- UK

Rudding Park in Harrogate is a rarity: a hotel that has fully embraced the opportunities of adapting a property to welcome disabled guests, and it has done so with style and flair. Janie Manzoori-Stamford pays a visit, and meets other operators leading the way by attracting the purple pound. “Once you get it right, they will come back again and again and again,” says Peter Banks. The Rudding Park managing director is talking about guests with additional needs, yet he could just as easily be talking about any one of the 500,000 annual visitors to the Harrogate property…

Oi’ disabled! No Job? That’s your own fault

August 20, 2018 | Source: Disability Horizons- UK

According to the Papworth Trust, by the age of 26, disabled people are four times more likely to be out of work or not in education than non-disabled people. At the end of last year, the Conservative government announced a renewed pledge to get 1 million disabled people into work within the next 10 years. But, as usual, it is disabled people themselves that are being treated as the problem. Despite government claims that it has managed to get more than 600,000 disabled people into work since 2013, I believe that the government has conveniently ignored the true cause of unemployment amongst disabled people…

Towards a sustainable smart city: The case of Aizawl

August 17, 2018 | Source: Observer Research Foundation- India

Cities in India are focal points of regional growth and development. The rapid pace of urbanisation is no longer considered ‘parasitic’, but rather ‘generative’, contributing to the growth of the national economy. The increasing wave of globalisation, particularly after the economic reforms in the country, has enhanced the pivotal role of cities in the process of development. It cannot be overemphasised that national and regional development rests largely on the competitiveness, vibrancy, efficiency and liveability of cities. At the same time, questions of sustainability, inclusiveness and equity have been raised as a reaction to globalisation-led urbanisation…

Barrie woman pushing for more accessible sports

August 21, 2018 | Source: Barrie Today- Canada

Heather Morgan, who uses a wheelchair due to an undiagnosed muscular condition, knows the “euphoric” feeling of crossing the finish line after a gruelling triathlon. With help from her husband, Trevor, she experienced it firsthand at the Barrie Triathlon on Aug. 12. She wants other people with accessibility issues to feel that same sense of accomplishment. Morgan is raising money to purchase a wheelchair specially designed for triathlons, which could then be shared through an organization called My Team Triumph…

Parkinson’s disease might soon be diagnosed with a simple eye test

August 21, 2018 | Source: ZME Science- South Korea

Patients in the advanced stage of Parkinson’s disease experience severe and debilitating symptoms, such as rigidity and bradykinesia. There is currently no cure for this terrible disease, but the earlier it’s caught, the better it can be kept under control by medication before the problems with movement become irreversible. This is why the latest research out of South Korea is so exciting — it suggests that in the future a simple eye test could diagnose Parkinson’s…

Accessibility must be more than an add-on to online pedagogy

August 21, 2018 | Source: University Affairs- Canada

Recently, I attended a conference presentation ostensibly about accessible online learning, where I watched a man we’ll call Steve fumble over gadgets at the podium. After a few assurances that we would get started right away, folks, a woman’s face appeared on a large, projected screen. Catherine (not her real name) was introduced by Steve and began talking. The trouble was that nobody could understand what she was saying. Catherine’s voice was a loud, jarring hum of electronic crinkles, like a jammed Skype call…

Kamloops man voices concerns about accessibility on public transit

August 21, 2018 | Source: InfoTel News- Canada

Alex Kilba makes his way to the bus stop at Summit and Arrowstone Drives in Kamloops, an almost daily routine for him, but it comes with its challenges. Kilba was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that affects the growth of the spine. He’s been in a wheelchair since he was two years old, and over the years has had to learn to deal with a world that isn’t catered to people with disabilities. Public transit can pose some of the most challenges for those in wheelchairs, and Kilba has had his fair share of issues riding the bus, which he’s spoken out about over social media…

Japan aims to increase number of wheelchair-accessible hotels before 2020 Games

August 22, 2018 | Source: Japan Times &Mainichi- Japan

Tokyo 2020 Promotes Paralympic Benefits for Japan

August 22, 2018 | Source: Around the Rings- Japan

The Japanese government aims to increase the number of hotels with wheelchair-accessible rooms ahead of the 2020 Games, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday. Under the plan, operators of newly built hotels and inns with 50 or more rooms will be required beginning September 2019 to make at least 1 percent of them wheelchair friendly, compared with a minimum of one such room under current regulations. Both the current and planned new regulations do not apply to existing facilities…

Scandic Hosting 300 Wheelchair Basketball Players at One Hotel

August 22, 2018 | Source: RusTourismNews_ Germany

The Wheelchair Basketball World Championships are being held in Germany between August 16 and 26. Scandic Hamburg Emporio is the official team hotel thanks to its successful work to promote accessibility. Now, the hotel is hosting 300 wheelchair athletes, a unique clientele. We are one of the only companies in Europe that can accommodate so many wheelchair guests at the same time, which is possible thanks to our extensive initiatives to make our hotels accessible to everyone. It’s a great honor to be able to take care of so many athletes, says Magnus Berglund, Accessibility Director at Scandic Hotels…

Museums in Campeche are 100% accessible for people with disabilities

August 22, 2018 | Source: The Yucatan Times- Mexico

Under the understanding that museums should be understandable, comfortable and safe environments for all people, the four museums that the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) operates in Campeche are considered the first set of cultural spaces that, on a national scale, are 100 percent accessible for people with disabilities. “This means that the exhibition areas, access and services, are suitable for people with disabilities”, informed the architect Claudia Escalante Díaz, director of Museums of the INAH Campeche Center and coordinator of the project entitled Accessibility Enabling…

Are women with disabilities second class citizens?

August 23, 2018 | Source: The Parliament- EU

There are an estimated 40 million EU citizens facing numerous barriers in the enjoyment of their rights, suffer social exclusion, discrimination and violence. Despite representing 16 per cent of the EU’s female population, women and girls with disabilities are still living on the margins of society. Such actions must stop and the European Institutions must speak out collectively to prevent this ongoing abuse. Women with disabilities need special support, yet there is no proper focus on them at EU level, neither in the strategy on women nor in the strategy on persons with disabilities…

49% of Disabled People Feel Excluded From Society

August 23, 2018 | Source: Rights Info- UK

Nearly half of disabled people feel excluded from society and day to day life, according to a new report by disability charity Scope. The report, “Independent. Confident. Connected.” polled 2000 working age disabled people in Britain. It found that 41% don’t feel valued, and only 42% feel the UK is a good place for disabled people to live. Just 23% of respondents feel valued by society, one third experience prejudice in their day to day lives, and two-thirds say they have stopped doing something in the past year because of other people’s attitudes…

“My learning disability didn’t stop me from becoming a lawyer”

August 23, 2018 | Source: East Coast Radio- South Africa

After being diagnosed with a severe learning disability and almost going blind, Willemien du Toit went on to obtain a Law qualification from the University of Oxford. She is now using her testimony to motivate women and children around the world. “Just 2 weeks before I was born, my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. In those days the medics had no way of knowing or telling that an infant may be suffocating from the grips of an umbilical cord. I was born through natural birth which caused the umbilical cord to grip even tighter…

I’ve been told to wait three years for a wheelchair that ‘can go outside’

August 23, 2018 | Source: The Guardian- UK

One of my abiding childhood memories was being given my first wheelchair. Until I was six, I had to resort to a large buggy, a mass of translucent plastic frames and ugly grey wheels. It was through the charity Whizz-Kidz that I finally got my first wheelchair, a streamlined seat in midnight purple. I remember taking my newfound freedom to my local Morrisons, home of the shiniest floor in town. I had gone from being trapped in plastic to sitting in a rocket ship, throwing myself down the crisps and snacks aisle…

God’s house can be accessible and beautiful

August 24, 2018 | Source: Church Times- UK

The Archbishop of Canterbury said last month that, when it came to weighing up the balance between accessibility and heritage, the former should trump the latter. He told a conference on disability and the Church of England at Lambeth Palace that he would “like legislation put through Parliament that puts disabilities above heritage”, to improve accessibility. Archbishop Welby has done much to push issues of disability further up the agenda, and has been very supportive of Disability and Jesus, the organization that I co-founded with the Revd Bill Braviner and the Revd Katie Tupling…

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