Recently in Profile Category

It was just brought to my attention that I never actually published a post about the wonderful work of Shaka Surf Camp in Costa Rica:

Just contacted by Robbie Nelson & Rosanna Messick at the Adaptive Surfing Foundation. We need to get them down to Floripa in Brazil!

• Onglet « Tourisme et handicap » sur la page d'accueil du site internetwww.audetourisme.com.

• Un nouveau site en juin. A cette même adresse, la nouvelle version du site internet du CDT de l'Aude-Pays cathare sera en ligne en juin 2010. Elle intègre un mini site dédié exclusivement au handicap, particulièrement complet, plus ergonomique et plus lisible. Répondant à la norme « Accessiweb V1.1 », il permet, entre autres :

- Une présentation vocale du département en MP3, téléchargeable.
- Une vidéo détaillée de tous les secteurs en langue des signes.
- Une rubrique pour préparer son séjour (accès en avion, services Accès plus de la SNCF dans trois gares du département, contacts utiles sur les agglomérations de Narbonne et Carcassonne...).
- La liste des offices du tourisme labélisés.
- L'annuaire des services spécialisés et d'aide à la personne.
- La liste des zones de baignades accessibles (plages et piscines).
- Une rubrique « Actus » recensant tous les infos spécifiques et les actions des prestataires labélisés.

• Brochure Tourisme & Handicap de l'Aude Pays Cathare (version papier ou téléchargeable sur le site), éditée depuis 2003. La grande nouveauté de la cette édition est la mise en valeur des structures labélisées situées à proximité du Canal du Midi. Leur diversité et leur complémentarité permettent à une clientèle en situation de handicap physique de composer un séjour en toute confiance. Elle recense tous les sites labélisés, avec un descriptif et une carte du département. La brochure 2010 est disponible le 12 mars.

• Mémento de l'accueil touristique en LSF (Langue des signes française), disponible depuis 2007, en version papier ou téléchargeable sur le site. Une première en France ! Destiné aux professionnels du tourisme et agents des offices du tourisme, initiés à cette langue lors de formations, ce manuel pratique permet de répondre à des situations concrètes face à des personnes sourdes et malentendantes. Il propose un florilège de photos présentant les expressions les plus courantes : bonjour, merci, bonnes vacances, restaurant ou feu d'artifice...

• Présentation du département avec vidéo en LSF sur le site. L'Aude fut l'un des premiers à proposer un tel service d'information ! Dans de courtes vidéos, une interprète en langue des signes présente les différents pays qui composent le département, les sites majeurs et l'histoire de la région.
www.audetourisme.com/FR/tourisme_et_handicap/lsf/le_pays_carcassonnais.aspx

• Sensibilisation des professionnels à l'accueil des visiteurs handicapés à l'occasion de courtes formations à l'initiative des offices du tourisme et du CDT. Elles abordent le cadre légal, les obligations imposées par la loi handicap de 2005 et un accompagnement technique pour mettre leurs sites en conformité. Sur le nouveau site du CDT, une rubrique « Espace pro » proposera dès juin 2010 une multitude d'informations et de documents (certains disponibles en version papier) pour les aider dans leurs démarches : photos, schémas et plans des adaptations, liste des fournisseurs spécialisés sur toute la France, guide pour l'accueil des visiteurs handicapés...

• Participation active à des salons spécialisés.
Prochains rendez-vous :
- Salon Autonomies à Liège (Belgique), les 25, 26 et 27 mars 2010 où le CDT de l'Aude présentera sa brochure 2010 sur la plate-forme « Tourisme & Loisirs adaptés ».
- Salon Autonomic à Paris, Porte de Versailles les 9, 10 et 11 juin 2010.

• Trophées « Autonomic, Innov 2008 » et « Les étoiles de l'accueil, trophée de la Maison de la France (Rn2d) » en 2006 qui ont récompensé la présentation filmée du département en langue des signes.

 En savoir plus sur notre dossier « Tourisme et handicap » dans l'Aude :

Aude : « Un tourisme pour tous ! » et contacts
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3166.php

Aude : Editorial d'Alain Coste, directeur du CDT + projets
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3167.php

Aude : le tourisme adapté en chiffres
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3168.php

Aude : les sites incontournables et leur accessibilité
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3170.php

Aude : Carcassonne, notre ville coup de cœur
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3171.php

Aude : Narbonne, des actions positives
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3172.php

Aude : calendrier des grandes manifestations
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3173.php

Aude : bastion gastronomique
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3174.php

Aude : sports et loisirs adaptés
http://tourisme.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3175.php

Siource:

http://informations.handicap.fr/art-tourisme-culture-15.0.0.0-3169.php

Design makes all the difference! For those who don't understand the Norwegian just watch the images of the Integra lifter. It looks just like a furniture removing the stigma of "hospital appliance" from a necessary assistive device. 

Nilesh Singit Consultancy Services [NSCS], was started by Nilesh Singit and is supoorted by a group of professionals who understand the needs of persons with disabilities and activists with disabilities who provide their expertise on project and assignment basis.

About Nilesh Singit He has a Masters degree in English from University of Bombay, and has completed a PG course in Human Rights and is a Novell Certified Internet Professional [NCIP] He has worked for over 12 years in the field of disability with a special focus on access audits, accessibility and inclusive design, disability diversity/equality/rights training and research into disability issues.

He is

• A Founder Member of the ADAPT Rights Group.
• member of National Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities - India (NRCPD India) a committee setup by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP)
• a Zonal Technical Resource Trainer [ZTRT] conducting trainings for National Trust, India
• Ex co-ordinator of Disability Rights Initiative (Bombay) at the India Centre for Human Rights and Law
• Founder Member of Disability Research and Design Foundation.

He maintains a blog on disability issues.

http://nileshsingit.com/default.aspx

 Does how private homes are built affect tourism?  You bet.    In part, because countless people who would have taken  trips  to visit  relatives and friends , stay home instead.

This one travelogue by the founder of the movement for Visitability, Eleanor Smith, tells the overlooked story of how lack of accessibility and the failure to adopt Universal Design even in our homes has an economic impact on a region's tourism coffers:

Four-day family vacation at my sister's house in California:   Ten of us--adult sibs and spouses.     We hiked the trails winding  above the Pacific, and  ate in a seafood restaurant.   We went to the John Steinbeck museum in Salinas, and ate lunch at a local diner.    We rode the rapid transit system into San Francisco,  shopped and dined  in Chinatown.    We toured  the historic mission  in San Juan Bautista  and had  lunch in an outdoor café under an arbor  in a  flower garden.    We had a wonderful time reminiscing, joking, catching up.    And we spent a lot of money.     Ordinary tourism.

 

Ordinary except that none of this would have happened if my sister's house had not had a ramp and renovated bathroom due to her husband's progressing Multiple Sclerosis.   I, meanwhile, have used a wheelchair since having polio at age three.   Now , at age 65, I was no longer the buff young woman who could toss her wheelchair behind her into the back seat of a car and drive off, and could  be carried up steps into houses in a manual chair if need be.        I use a power wheelchair and must have a ramp to enter houses that have entry steps.    So my sister's accessible house was the choice for our reunion.   Had the house not had access, I would not have been present.      Nor would my brother-in-law with MS  have been able to  exit his house without extreme effort (and no, not all people with mobility impairments are able to obtain the renovations they need in their  home.   Perhaps 2/3 of them remain dependent on the schedules, abilities and whims of others to exit their own homes.)   It is unlikely the California reunion would have happened at all if the house had lacked access.

  

What's the relation between private home access and disability?   I think no one has yet researched the vast amount of  tourist dollars NOT spent because people with mobility impairments can't enter the houses or  use the bathrooms in the houses of their far-flung adult children, siblings, friends...  or can only do so with great difficulty.      In fact, my non-disabled sibs often use my Kentucky sister's house  as an overnight stop-off and enjoyable visit while travelling  from Indiana  or Florida.   But I,  and my would-be travel companions, do not.       Her house has 5 steps up to one bathroom and five steps down to the other.   

 

I don't fault my Kentucky sister  for buying the house that was well located and priced right for her and her family.   We can't renovate all the existing houses that lack access, an  estimated 124 million houses in the U.S alone.    But we can stop building new houses with the same barriers.    That's what the movement called Visitability (or Inclusive Home Design, or Basic Home Access,   or Core Universal Design) is about. And it has been at least a little effective in getting houses built with basic access whether or not a known first resident has a disability.   For information about this movement, see www.concretechange.org.

 

Does how private homes are built affect tourism?  You bet.    In part, because countless people who would have taken  trips  to visit  relatives and friends , stay home instead.

Rudy has a great resource going online at Disability Resource Exchange (DRE). Read about him at Accessible Portugal magazine:

Making difference on-line
By João Durão da Silva

Social networks are truly implanted among internet users' habits today. People use them to chat, share ideas and experiences or even for marketing purposes. Disability Resource Exchange however has something more

Disability Resource Exchange (DRE) is a social network created by Rudy Sims, a 31-year-old man from Teaneck, New Jersey, who was born with cerebral palsy. You can find it at www.disabilityresourceexchange.com and its name says it all. As one may find in its home page, "Disability resource exchange is a place to discuss disability issues and exchange resources ideas and support".

For that, Rudy intends "to bring together all those interested in disability issues, both people with and without disabilities", as well as "organizations within the disability community", making this network "a place with a supportive atmosphere, where we can all learn from each other". He explains his goal: "I want the community to be a very supportive and positive place. I am trying to foster an environment that encourages understanding and knowledge exchange, even from people with very differing opinions."

Full story:

http://www.apmagazine.net/2010/January/internet.htm

Power wheelchair bowling  

The following slideshow is a collection of variations on the theme of the international accessibility symbol. Check back as graphic artist Terri O'Hare keeps updating it.

Disaboom's Disability Organizations Directory identifies over 300 organizations, ranging from local to international, that work to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

The Directory is divided into three categories: Major Disability Organizations, Disability-Specific Organizations, and Organizations for Living with Disabilities.

Major Disability Organizations includes the all-encompassing national organizations like the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD).

The Disability-Specific Organizations section focuses on organizations (within 22 categories) that are geared toward a specific condition or disability, from cerebral palsy to spinal cord injuries.

The final section, Organizations for Living with Disabilities, includes those groups that cover all the ins and outs of everyday life, from organizations that help you learn to play adaptive sports to those that will make your transition as a college student with disabilities a little easier. This section's 18 subcategories include accessible travel, caregiver resources, fitness and wellness, and service animals, among others.

Each organization's listing contains brief information about the organization, its mission and services, and a link to the organization's website. Both nonprofits and government agencies are included.

Disaboom's Disability Organizations Directory can be found at http://www.disaboom.com/Resources/DisabilityOrganizations/Default.aspx

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It may not yet be apparent but an exodus is taking place.

Campaigns waged for generations to make urban environments at first merely accessible - and now fully inclusive - are sprouting up in rural and wilderness environments.

The US Access Board is circulating draft guidelines on outdoor access while the maritime industry absorbs the Waypoint-Backstrom Principles. Yet the real dynamism has left the US and sunk deep roots in other regions:

Equal Adventure (UK)
http://www.equaladventure.org/index.html

Accessible Whistler (Canada)
http://www.whistlerforthedisabled.com/

Disabled WinterSport (Australia)
http://www.disabledwintersport.com.au/

Alpine Accessibility Toolkit
http://www.disabledwintersport.com.au/Pages/AATP/Toolkit/start_here.html

Adventure Tour Operators Association of India
http://www.atoai.org/

Brazilian Adventure Society
http://www.bas.org.br/

Siyabona (South Africa)
http://www.krugerpark.co.za/Kruger_Park_Travel_Advisory-travel/kruger-park-travel-article-disabled-traveller.html

This year the thrust of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is making the Millennium Development Goals inclusive. The incidence of disability and poverty is high in rural areas. Successful campaigns for inclusive recreational facilities and programs  in these rural and wilderness areas brings income and the example of self-determining independent people with disabilities. It has a positive transformative impact on the economy and culture of rural areas or people with disabilities

Object Lesson: Interdependence is the core value of disability culture. Witness Kurt Fearnly: