With the Community Living BC Vancouver Council , which advocates for the inclusion of people with developmental disabilities
Accessibility and inclusion go beyond physical spaces . How does BC Disability promote awareness and action in areas like employment , education , and social inclusion for people with disabilities ?
One way was through helping advise the City of Vancouver on the organization of its accessibility consultations . That included connecting selfadvocates and other people with disabilities to city staff to provide input on accessibility barriers , which are still present in virtually every aspect of life .
Through these consultations attention was brought to the many ways Vancouver needs to become more accessible , and how the city ’ s accessibility strategy , in concert with provincial accessibility legislation , can facilitate this .
Recently I was also a contributor to a town hall on HandyDART and the need to create more accessible transit systems in the province ’ s Lower Mainland . HandyDART is meant for people who cannot access public transit , but it has increasingly become unreliable as service is limited and they are outsourcing more rides to inaccessible taxis .
BC Disability ’ s role is to highlight issues like this , and also to promote opportunities for the public to get involved in solving them .
Overall , there is still far to go to make our communities accessible , but there has been progress in recognizing that accessibility is about more than ramps , curb cuts , and lifts , and that it extends to equally important but less visible areas like attitudes , education , and information .
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