Tag Archives: support services

Recommended Reading for 28 September, 2010

I hope all is well in your world on this fine Tuesday! Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Canada: Disabled-services flip-flop at Winnipeg Free Press:

The about-face came one day after an internal U of W memo was leaked to media and revealed a number of university programs to help disabled students were on the chopping block. The decision outraged students and raised eyebrows since it comes just weeks after the U of W launched a new disability degree program devoted to the “critical analysis of disability in society.”

USA: College Web Pages Are ‘Widely Inaccessible’ to People With Disabilities from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The study found that more colleges are deploying basic accessibility features, like adding alternative text to images so a blind student can understand them with read-aloud software.

But those gains were offset by challenges from inaccessible emerging technologies. For example, a person with disabilities who can’t use a mouse will often be stymied by a Web site that requires users to hover their mouse over a page element to trigger a sub-menu.

Australia: Disabled drivers get no favours on private property from the Brisbane Times:

The Department of Transport, which issues disabled parking permits under its Disability Parking Permit Scheme, is powerless to protect drivers who park in shopping centres, with centre management charged with enforcing the scheme there.

India: Promote sign language, urges deaf association from expressbuzz.com:

More than 100 members of the Deaf Enabled Foundation, an NGO for the deaf, took out a rally on International Day of the Deaf, here on Sunday, from the Labour Statue to Light House.

And, also from India, framed in possibly the most patronising way possible, Movie made by deaf and dumb to premiere on Oct 9 from the Indian Express:

The movie Amir=Garib, to be premiered on October 9 in the Town Hall Auditorium, has all the essentials of a Bollywood flick, but one fundamental element — sound. The movie has been made by deaf and dumb people.

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Recommended Reading for November 5, 2009

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot!

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, UK-folks!

Via SpiralSheep: Feminist Spoons

Friends and family are aware enough of my health problems to understand when I have to cancel things, or rearrange them. But these days, I am much less involved in feminist activism than I ever have been.

This is definitely spoon-related, and also directly related to my main local feminist group meeting in an inaccessible venue for so long that I gave up arguing with them about it. (They now meet somewhere which may be accessible, but they’re not sure. I feel so thoroughly disenamoured with them that I’m not willing to test it out).

But I have also found that while individual feminists can be very understanding with my lack of spoons on a day-to-day basis, it sometimes seems less acceptable when it interferes with my ability to attend actions, protests and meetings.

Sick Bodies: Health Care and the Body-As-Machine

But, more fundamentally, I find it problematic that the entire set up of a hospital is about the production of health care, not the recipients of that care. Long after being shuffled into a room filled with equipment and posters not designed with my challenging body in mind, and as I watched the doctor treating me struggle to find words beyond, “Well, I’ve not actually met anybody who has done that,” I wondered seriously about what could possibly be done to fix a system that has so little respect for the bodies of the individuals it treats.

We all carry our scars, surgeries, allergies, broken bones, memories, genetics, blood, hopes, and guts with us wherever we go. We are stunning in our uniqueness, and our bodies are the seat of who we are. Of course, we all have the same basic parts, but I wouldn’t take a car to any old mechanic or my pet to any vet—I want someone who understands the particular quirks of my engine or that my cat needs to be coaxed gently out of her hiding spot.

In the news:

Politics are Crippling State-funded Services to the Disabled [US] [long]

This week, Meyer’s 16-year struggle for a productive life will become more difficult. Scheduled California budget cuts will increase the deductible some low-income disabled people must pay for workers from the In-Home Supportive Services program. The cost hike may leave him with as little as $600 a month to live on, pushing him closer to the point where he’s forced to enter a nursing home. “I just want to be able to stay here, live a healthy life, and be a productive citizen,” he says.

Lawsuit filed against school district:

The suit contends S.G.’s May 2007 Individual Education Program was never modified and he was “unilaterally removed from his ‘inclusion’ classes without notice to (his parents) solely as a result of disability in December 2007 and in direct violation of his IEP.”

The suit also claims S.G. was placed in a more restrictive environment when removed him from his inclusion classes, “caused negative cognitive and social effects as well as mental anguish.”

Moreover, S.G., who has an allergy to milk and soy products, was given them on a daily basis during the 2007-08 school year.

These links are to images that belong to Getty Images, so I’m just going to link to their site rather than post them here. I cannot speak for how accessible their website is, though.

They are shots of wheelchair-using athletes “finishing in the wheelchair division of the New York City Marathon”.

Hugging! Different hugging! Action shot!