OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel), a travel industry distribution specification and standards development organization, announces the publication of the 2011B version of its schema. 

Included in this version were some changes to hotel schema that focused on a subset of the 2010 ADA(Americans with Disabilities Act) legislation that specifically applies to electronic hotel reservations and includes: 

• Identifying and describing accessible features
• Reserving, upon request, accessible guest rooms or specific types of guest rooms and ensuring that the guest rooms requested are blocked and removed from all reservations system inventory
• Guaranteeing the specific accessible guest room

MIUSA's Women's Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD) will bring together approximately 30 women leaders with disabilities from approximately 30 different countries, to strengthen leadership skills, create new visions and build international networks of support for inclusive international development programming.

During the three-week program, participants will take part in workshops, seminars and discussions, conduct on-site visits, and participate in team-building activities, to explore challenges and exchange strategies for increasing leadership opportunities and participation of women and girls with disabilities in international development programs.

The WILD program will include interactive workshops, site visits and practical activities on priority issues for women with disabilities, including:

·       National and International Policies and Legislation, including the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Disability Policy

·       Educational rights and opportunities including specialized and inclusive schools, policy and legal rights, services and accommodations for accessibility

·       Leadership for economic empowerment, including higher education, training models, supported employment, microenterprise, private sector partnerships, career mentorship, skill-building, employment policy, and career development.

·       Health and family issues including parenting, health care, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and violence prevention

·       Using the media

·       Coalition building

·       Organizational development and sustainability, including funding resources and strategies, and fostering partnerships with community organizations and businesses

·       Goals and action plans to promote collaborative relationships with other organizations for the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in international development programs.

·       Inclusive international development, including exchanging strategies for inclusion with representatives from U.S-based international development organizations and/or human rights organizations

·       Cultural and team-building experiences

·       Mentorship and networking

For more information or to download an application go to:http://www.miusa.org/exchange/currentprogs/wild/wild2012/index_html

The official languages of WILD are English, Arabic, Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL). Participants must have at least conversational ability in English and/or be familiar with ASL.

Transportation

Access to public transportation is a key to independence and full community participation for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act sets forth specific requirements for transit systems including fixed route buses, light and heavy rail systems, ADA complementary paratransit, over-the-road buses, shuttles, and other forms of publicly and privately-funded public transportation. DREDF advocates for the development and implementation of strong, comprehensive ADA transportation requirements, works toward additional accessible transportation service, and provides in-depth training for people with disabilities and others on ADA transportation that includes current policy developments and best practices.

More:

http://www.dredf.org/transportation/index.shtml

• Completed the Wheeling Cal's Coast website which experienced 7,000 visitors in 2011.
• Added a trails feature to the Access Northern California website.
• Partnered with Open Doors Organization based out of Chicago to conduct 35 customer service trainings for Amtrak service employees.
• Partnered with Berkeley Center for Independent Living to conduct disability awareness trainings for the Oakland Airport and Alameda County Probation Department.
• onducted a disability awareness training for Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA.)
• Hosted a booth at the San Jose Abilities Expo where we distributed 400 Wheelchair Rider's Trail Guides and collected 85 new subscribers for the newsletter.
• Attended the LA Expo and distributed 200 postcards about the Wheeling Cal's Coast website.
• Produced 3 issues of the ANC e-newsletter which was sent to 800 people.

In advertising, the inclusion of people with disabilities is a double-edged sword: is it intended to highlight the disability, or the person, or both? If the disability is highlighted, it is usually because the business is selling products that accommodate the disability. 

For companies that do not directly sell to people with disabilities, utilizing a person with a disability in an advertisement is a delicate exercise, because popular culture in America today tends to exclude people with disabilities from its meme. The good news: this is not the 1950's, as people today are more aware of the economic power and influence of people with disabilities and their contributions to society. Yet if advertising practices today are any indication, people with disabilities still have a long way to go to be considered an integral part of popular culture. In a country where almost 20% of the population has a disability, this is a big slice of American society we are missing out on.

Two weeks ago, Target announced a special post-Christmas sale for kids' t-shirts ($5 each!) and kids' pants ($7 each!), through this advertisement on its website. It was just like any other promotion peddled by one of the United States's largest department stores. As with most retailers recovering from the Christmas shopping season, Target needed to clear out its inventory, and the $5 and $7 sales were meant to grab the attention of consumers and encourage them to buy clothes for their kids.

Rick Smith noticed something about this advertisement, only because of his own one-year-old son, who has Down syndrome. On the left side of the Target advertisement was a blond-haired kid wearing an orange- and brown-colored long-sleeve shirt. If you saw this kid and did not think twice, you were probably like most others who were interested in the shirt he wore and whether they should buy it from Target.

This ad needs no caption.

Target did not highlight the fact that Ryan Langston - the name of the kid in the orange shirt - has Down syndrome. He has some of the classic physical features of this condition, but that was not the point of the advertisement. All Target was doing was selling kid's apparel, and using cute kids to send the message. They did not even announce the kid in any of its press releases.

Thrilled about the non-announcement of Ryan and his disability, Rick Smith wrote about Target's advertisement on his blog, Noah's Dad. Disability advocates and others saw his post, and in a matter of hours it went viral. Rick told me, two days after his post, of his amazement at finding over 8,000 likes on his blog post (it is now over 21,000 as of this writing).

Read more:

http://blog.michaeljanger.com/2012/01/19/hey-that-limb-is-missing-debunking-disability-stereotypes-in-advertising/

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Universal Design is Just Good Design from The Builder Buzz on Vimeo.

As a designer and entrepreneur, I have long had a simple question no one has been able to answer: why is there no functional brand that speaks to the boomers while taking care of their everyday needs? With such a large demographic of people in their 60's and older, it is not only a missed business opportunity, but also an insult that products with low quality and lesser design are still the norm.

Thus, the principle of Universal Design--"the actual executions needed to assess all users needs throughout the design process, especially populations that have special needs"--was the starting point for Béhar and his team at fuseproject. From there, they determined that the "line of products--from weeklong pill storage to convenient on the go solutions--cover wide ranging needs, instead of just a singular solutions."

Read more:

http://www.core77.com/blog/exclusive/everyday_design_fuseproject_assaf_wand_launch_sabi_-_exclusive_qa_with_yves_behar_21579.asp

The simple truth is "nobody stops moving." Whether it is moving through space, or time, or relationships travel is both metaphor and a concrete reality. A few of us have dedicated significant portions of our lives to making travel possible for those who experience disabilities. Here is what we have discovered.

Inclusive tourism

We can create the built world around a more realistic and inclusive image of what it is to be human. Meanwhile we work with what we cannot change about our bodies and do the same things as everyone else - but sometimes a bit differently.

We call what we are promoting "Inclusive Tourism." We mean social inclusion; full participation.

The moral impulse for social inclusion is enshrined in national laws like the ADA, various Anti Discrimination Acts, and the UN's Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The practical tools for achieving this inclusion flow from the seven principles and eight goals of Universal Design.

Universal Design is "a framework for the design of places, things, information, communication and policy to be usable by the widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations without special or separate design." As we succeed in convincing more and more destinations that it is not only the "right thing to do" (even where laws don't mandate it) we show them the studies documenting that it is the profitable thing to do. With the industry coming to an awareness of how it can profit from us as customers - the US market of people with disabilities spending $ 13.6 annually (OD Market Study, 2002, 2005) - solo travel becomes physically possible.

Disability - a motivation for travel

Sometimes the very predictability of daily activities related to a disability is enough to spur one to travel. Consider these routine-breakers:

• If regular kidney dialysis is part of your lifestyle then taking one of several dialysis cruises available each year might determine your itinerary - at least until Endeavour Safaris is able to secure funding for a planned fully accessible game reserve lodge with dialysis.
• If you want to cruise but need oxygen, or a machine to help with breathing, Special Needs at Sea specializes in what you are looking for. Your solo travel might be limited to a few stolen moments in port but, if you are Deaf, the annual RCCL Deaf Cruise provides hospitality unrivaled by any other experience on the water - with the possible exception of chartering your own yacht through Waypoint Yacht Charter Services
• Trekking and backcountry camping offer a wrap-around silence that is appropriate to solo travel. If you have a mobility impairment maybe you want a Eureka wheelchair-friendly tent designed by Blue Sky Designs combined with a Marvel Wheelchair, the Kilmanjaro-climbing wheelchair used by Jesse Owens, or SideStix super-strong sport crutches. Consider carrying the Spot GPS device for safety.
(http://www.rollingrains.com/2008/07/usability-review-the-spot-personal-safety-device.html )
• Adventure sports are a good antidote to stereotypes about disability. White water rafting in Canada, hot air ballooning in the UK, wildlife safaris and bungee jumping in South Africa, elephant rides in Thailand, or zipline trips in Brazil are all easy to arrange. These days there are many specialist travel agents, tour operators, and publications to help with trip planning. I always suggest starting with Candy Harrington's work including her Emerging Horizons web site and magazine. She also has several books including "Barrier-Free Travel: A Nuts And Bolts Guide For Wheelers And Slow Walkers.

Going the distance.

"Step over the finish line." That was the advice coming from the radio as I sped northward alone toward the Canadian border at dawn. Travel writer Rick Steves was interviewing Norman Fischer author of the mythic solo travelogue "Sailing Home." Steves' point was about being transformed at the end of a journey. When you get to the destination , Steves said, "Go beyond the souvenir shop. Go over the finish line. Discover what only that place has to offer."

Captivated by the radio dialogue, passing not far from Rick's home at the time, I was on my way to oversee modification of a 42 foot catamaran in Bellingham Washington. The project added a bosun's chair so that, with some help, I could "sling myself over the finish line" onto the boat and sail out onto the bay.

Too often the logistical barriers of travel become handicapping for someone with a disability. Little energy, imagination, or finance remains to wander beyond the finish line and be immersed in the spirit of a place. With projects like this catamaran my 89 year old father, and friends from his assisted living community, will be among the first to use the bosun's chair as they take the new "aerial route" aboard. A physical barrier is removed and a new set of life-enhancing possibilities becomes available to a whole community of people.

There's a paradox to solo travel. It is there in the value we call inter-dependence which forms the heart of disability culture.

Unfamiliar environments remind us that even the simplest activities require us to rely on others. Environments that were never built for people with disabilities in the first place open that level of awareness to us permanently.

Solo travel, from the outside, looks like the ultimate in asserting independence. Yet we know from the inside that it is really a way of deeply connecting with persons and place. By paring travel down to the essentials the solo traveler feels the consequences of their individual choices with a new immediacy. Solo travel is a lot like living with a disability.

*This article was originally published in the Solo Traveler blog.

ASTA has filed comments with the Department Transportation (DOT) in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) entitled "Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel: Accessibility of Web Sites and Automated Kiosks at U.S. Airports," which addresses the issue of making websites accessible for people with disabilities.

In its filing, ASTA supports the proposal that "small business" travel agencies, as defined by the Small Business Administration, be exempted from the technical requirements of the rule. ASTA noted that without the exemption, it "will be very costly and likely drive many travel agencies out of the Internet environment altogether," which would ultimately not serve the interest of consumers. ASTA supports the policy tradeoff proposed by DOT "allowing small business agencies to avoid the cost and disruption of website rewrites but requiring the offline provision" of providing any online-only offers to disabled travelers in the offline environment.

ASTA's also noted in its filing that the industry should be subjected to a single compliance regime. ASTA referenced in its filing a similar rule-making from the Department of Justice (DOJ), and noted that while ASTA fully supports both the DOJ and DOT's goal of "bringing websites to a state of high accessibility by disabled persons as soon as feasible," one of the two agencies should to take the lead and put forth a single, coordinated proposal for the travel industry's review.

ASTA's comments went on to note that any compliance with federally imposed standards is not a job that should be turned over to third-party contractors, such as the airlines or the Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC), as DOT suggests. Interjecting the airlines into the path between the government and the agencies with regards to compliance with the accessibility rules will add another layer of complexity, cost and conflict. Moreover, in today's marketplace there are many travel agencies that do not sell airline tickets, and are therefore outside the jurisdiction of the airlines and ARC, as well as the DOT.

If rugged hills and mountains, lush green farmlands, lavish lake views and majestic caverns are what you have always fancied then Derbyshire is a place you would not be able to get enough of.

No matter what time of the year you are visiting this spectacular county, it will never fail to amuse you. A comprehensive holiday destination conforming to all the needs of the disabled, Derbyshire ensures that every other vacationer remembers it as a 'Tourist Paradise'. 

Nestled in awe-inspiring countryside, Derbyshire is one of the larger counties exuding a raw appeal that coaxes tourists into visiting it. Promising an experience of a lifetime, Derbyshire has ample attractions with facilities to accommodate those with issues of reduced mobility.

While the area is dotted with fascinating attractions, those with maximum amenities for disabled are as following:

Crich Tramway Village- Crich:

Overlooking the renowned Derwent Valley, Crich Tramway Village in Derbyshire is home to the National Tramway Museum. Showcasing a world of archives, Crich Tramway Village promises a great day out for everyone. Featured here are the 'Smoothway' to provide ease of movement to wheelchairs and pushchairs. Guide dogs are also welcome. 

Peter Fiddler Nature Reserve-Bolsover:

If you are in a mood of some wildlife watching, Peter Fiddler Nature Reserve is your stop. Watch the wide array of wildlife species as they roam their territories. Apart from observing these engaging fellas, you can also do some cycling, walking or horse-riding. Very pet friendly, the whole area has wheel chair access to provide freedom of movement to the disabled holiday-maker.

Gulliver's Kingdom- Matlock Bath:

It is time to have a bash with a splash at Gulliver's Kingdom. Endless fun for people of all ages, Gulliver's Kingdom has countless rides and attractions to keep you occupied all day long. With restaurants offering sumptuous food, Gulliver's Kingdom is disabled-friendly with rides and paths throughout the park which make the compound fully accessible. 

Peak Rail-Matlock:

If steam travel is your dream, Derbyshire fulfils it. A steam train giving you a ride of the breath-taking area of Derbyshire Dales, it will prove to be a nostalgic experience. Deemed as the most scenic area in all of Derbyshire, with all the viaducts and a multitude of other civil-engineering marvels, it is your chance to take in Derbyshire delights. Assistance is provided for the disabled to embark and disembark trains.

In a nut shell, Derbyshire is an accessible and very promising travel destination, one you just cannot afford to miss on a visit to United Kingdom.