Our Accessibility Hub journey is constantly evolving towards our goal to create a “one-stop shop” to ensure that each young person with sight or hearing disability and professionals or volunteers can easily access any needed accessibility support, equipment and information.
Its main purpose is that everyone has a part to play in education, employment and social life so ensuring that Blind people, especially teenagers and young people have access to accessible content and digital skills are very important to us.
Our Accessibility Hub activities this week in Timisoara focused on the barriers that Blind people/people with disabilities can face, what rights do they have, we identified solutions and discussed how our beneficiaries can contribute to make communities more inclusive and accessible.
One of our beneficiaries impressed us with the following comment:
We want to inspire non-disabled people to think about the role us-people with disabilities can play in a new, more accessible society.
Lets take the power of words: please use respectful terms when referencing people with disabilities
Use…person with diabetes, arthritis, etc.
instead of…afflicted with, suffers from
Use…person with a disability
instead of…the disabled, the handicapped
Use…person with a mental illness, person with a mental health issue
instead of…mentally ill, insane, crazy, psychotic
Use…person who is hard of hearing, person who is Deaf
instead of…the Deaf
Use…person who is Deaf-Blind
instead of…Deaf and dumb, Deaf mute
Use…person with Downs Syndrome, person with an intellectual disability, person with a developmental disability
instead of…Downs,imbecile, mentally retarded, mentally challenged
Use…person who is blind, person who is visually impaired
instead of…the blind
Use…person who stutters, person with a communication disability
instead of…stutterer, speech handicapped
Use…person with a mobility disability, person with a spinal cord injury
instead of…physically challenged, crippled
Use…person who uses a wheelchair
instead of…confined to a wheelchair, wheelchair bound
Use…accessible parking, accessible washrooms
instead of…handicapped parking, handicapped washrooms
Use…person without a disability
instead of…normal
