What is accessibility – How to create accessible programs for girls and young women

January 25th Training Across Distance Workshop

Click here to hear the Podcast from this training session

Workshop: What is accessibility – How to create accessible programs for girls and young women

Facilitator: Ysabelle Vautour from DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN)

Description: This workshop examines the disability and inclusion mindset. This is part of a series of workshops called How to create an accessible and supportive space for girls and young women. Ysabelle sharea her findings on what empowers and disables people in the learning process.

KEY LEARNINGS

Key questions:

• How do I perform outreach to people with different environmental, mobility and communication impairments?
• How to ensure that I make the space safe for all participants, and that they see me and our message as relevant to their experience.
  
• What are the important things to look for in order to be more aware of and sensitive to the needs of participants with special needs?
  
• Ways to empower girls and young women with different abilities.
  

Key learnings:

The idea of Social Model of Disability: is a concept that if the world was set up differently it wouldn’t have such a thing as disability. It is the idea that disability is not within a person, it is created by the environment, circumstances and barriers.

Disability is very diverse and can be experienced in many different ways by any type of person at any time, by anyone. To be inclusive and have accessibility is more then an attitude change is about having the commitment to realize that there is a plurality of experiences by all persons. So it is not about trying to fit certain disability in a certain context. Because there are so many different types of disabilities and so many possible accommodations. It is more an organizational commitment to be more inclusive, to have a plan and review it. Not to be a one time deal.

When you start a program/workshop need to have in mind that some participants will self identify others not. There are some questions that you can make on your registration form to be more inclusive, for example:

• Ask the participant what makes her feel included…
• What does she needs to fell comfortable…
  

It is really important to try to figure out who they are before the training.

There is a variety of ways you can experience something. So, having as many different options for somebody to participate is what inclusivity kind of means. And you try to take a look at that on different levels. For example, if you are presenting something what are the different ways you could present it? Think on different ways of presenting materials, handouts, icebreakers.

In planning programs/workshops to be more inclusive, people usually think on the physical environment and they forget things like language, opportunities to participate or the access to the space. It is to be able to offer opportunities to people to participate in different ways and have the time to allow different experiences and different voices to be heard. Have a place to hear what accommodation people need and try to be proactive about it.