Session 5 – 12th April – 11.30 – 12.30

Title of Presentation: What is Disability Equality Access?

Presenter: Andrew Hubbard

Organisation: Disibility Equality Training

Summary:

The disabled people’s movement regards disability as an equal opportunities issue. As with racism and sexism, disabled people face much discrimination in their lives. Discrimination takes many forms, but the ethos of our training is to raise awareness of how society, the inflexible environment and attitudes place disabling barriers in the way of equal opportunity, choice and learning.

There are many physical barriers to taking part in main stream activities. Access has become the key word in disability politics and is most frequently used in connection with buildings and the built environment. While access slopes into buildings are becoming a more familiar feature, they are only a small part of true access. Often the greatest barriers to overcome are prejudice, attitudes and ignorance. A wheel chair user is not disabled by the wheelchair, but is disabled by the steps preventing him from using the local library.

A blind person is disabled by the lack of appropriate information and resources in alternative formats. True access to information would revolutionise the world for most blind or visually impaired people.  Braille, tape and electronic information is still not easy to access. Having to ask, for other formats of materials, often repeatedly, is a barrier. It is very disabling for a blind person to ask someone else to read private mail and confidential information. A deaf person faces huge communication barriers, when attempting to access services. An induction loop as a standard facility in all public buildings, banks the benefit agency etc, would be a tremendous step forward. Disabled people want equality of access and do not want to be treated as special cases. The concept of ‘Special Provision’ is often a barrier in itself and can be very discriminatory in many cases. Language and etiquette can also present barriers to communication and access to services.

This workshop will encourage participants to explore these issues from the fundamental principle of equal opportunity and choice. There are no right or wrong answers. Participants work in small groups and are encouraged to see things from different perspectives.  Our goal is to change a person’s awareness and perception of disabled people.