Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Recognizing and Overcoming Barriers

This post was originally published on Philadelphia's Office of Emergency Management blog.

Two individuals having a conversation in front of a blue screen with the letters OEM and the words Office of Emergency Management in white.

I am a huge Speechless fan. No spoilers though. Seriously, I missed the finale last night. Some may say it’s due to the similarities I share with Minnie Driver’s character Maya DiMeo, mostly her ability to use humor while proving her point. While I am pretty proud of that, one of the consistent battles of the show, accessibility, is at the heart of my job. I like seeing that represented on screen.

I am the Community Resilience Assistant Coordinator at OEM, what that really means is: I work to make sure people with disabilities or individuals that face particular obstacles and barriers are safe before, during, and after an emergency. We plan, we practice, and act, all the meanwhile aware that there may be gaps and vulnerabilities that exist. Every day I raise concerns of extra problems someone may encounter and how we can address that.

Back to Speechless. Speechless is an ABC sitcom that follows the DiMeo family. They just happen to have a son, JJ, with cerebral palsy.

One episode in particular really explained what I try to do in a much faster and easier fashion than I have ever been able to pull off.

In ‘O-S OSCAR P-A PARTY’ the DiMeos are throwing an Oscar watch party for their fellow parents of children with disabilities. Kenneth – JJ’s aide (JJ is nonverbal and communicates using a laser pointer and a board containing letters and phrases, Kenneth reads aloud), and JJ begin competing over movie trivia and quickly realize that the traditional method of reading the question and shouting out an answer puts JJ at an immediate disadvantage. As Kenneth adjusts the game to meet JJ’s needs, other children with various disabilities and needs want to join in as well. While the show takes us through some of the other characters story lines for that episode we come back to the game room and there are various accommodations put in place to even the playground.

That’s what accessibility is essentially about – recognizing that individuals use tools differently, participate in activities differently, and move around differently. Therefore things often need to change to allow for inclusion.

One big thing that needs to change is being ‘online.’ Digital access still rarely becomes a big deal until you personally are affected by it. Have you ever gotten on a website and the font was too small? What about an online form, was it a bit confusing the fill out?

Today is the sixth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).

GAAD was founded in 2012 with the goal of bringing mainstream developers and members of the digital accessibility community together one day in May every year to discuss accessibility and introduce the topic to those who have never come across it before.

My favorite part of this work is talking to people about access and inclusion, getting them to understand that they need to learn about these issues and work with members of the community so we can find better solutions together.

Accessibility is one of the main themes of our Emergency Practices and Inclusion Conference, know around the office and in acronym world as EPIC. On June 16th we will bring together emergency management agencies and community organizations to talk about a wide ranges of access issues and how that applies to emergency planning and response.

We invite you to learn more at our conference.