International News
This page features global news on disability from the Debrief Library. See also news from other countries.
Contents
Accessibility and Design
Back to contents.
Overview
Chasing Rainbows: Designing for colorblindness. “Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.” (Apr, The Verge)
Meghan Hussey on 4 ways to design a disability-friendly future (Oct, TED Talk)
Co-creating Inclusive Public Spaces: Learnings from Four Global Case Studies on inclusive Cities. “Many public spaces are not regulated by conventional building standards, especially when constructed or formed within informal settlements or within privately-owned spaces. This requires broader advocacy and education to ensure clients and built environment practitioners uphold inclusive design standards in their work.” (Jun, Journal of Public Space)
UNICEF Accessibility Toolkit. Focus on accessibility of physical spaces and built environment. The checklists look particularly helpful. (May, UNICEF)
The World Bank Technical Note on Accessibility a big resource providing strategic directions, guidance for the project cycle, thematic briefs and technical references. Thematic areas include WASH, ICT, Transportation, Urban Sector and Operations. Further, if you need accessibility standards for built environments, the technical references part of the guide looks like a good reference. (Apr, World Bank) The primary audience for this is World Bank teams. Given the range and significance of the projects they fund, this is a useful resource that is trying to leverage the Bank's role to help countries take more substantial accessibility actions within those projects.
An interactive feature on Inaccessible Cities featuring disabled people, their lives, and the urban infrastructure that gets in their way, in New York, Lagos and Mumbai. (Mar, Aljazeera)
Global guide: Access for all Creating inclusive global built environments. (Mar) See a summary of the contents on Fair Play Talks.
The Against List. Reflections for designers to engage with disability, and questions to ask to avoid this dynamic:
'We have realized that advocating for “more disabled people in design” without advocating structural changes to what design is, how it operates, and what problems it seeks to solve is just advocating for a select few people to gain more power within an unjust system, while allowing the marginalization of others by that system to become more entrenched.' (Feb, Alex Haagaard)
The Zero Project 2022 Conference on Accessibility was held in Vienna and online. As well as the talks, including one by yours truly, see the 2022 report which describes the innovative practices and much more. (Feb)
Housing
Lawsuit Uncovers Chicago’s Failure to Provide Disability Protections in Housing. “Advocates say people with disabilities are suffering the worst consequences of the U.S.’s affordable housing crisis.” (Feb, Truthout)
Ageing
Back to contents.
A guide to national programmes for age-friendly cities and communities. (Apr, WHO)
Still Kicking a “workshop is designed to inform the emerging conversation around the intersection of ageism and ableism”. (Dec, Old School)
A guide on Bringing generations together for change: Learning from intergenerational approaches to address issues facing older and younger people. (HelpAge)
Older people left out as UN speeches repeatedly invoke young. “Older persons are pretty much missing, everybody thinks that the future is just something for younger persons.” (Sep, AP News)
A report from UN Independent Expert on Older persons deprived of liberty: “older persons are more likely to be de facto deprived of liberty
in care facilities than in prisons” (Sep, UN) See commentary from Human Rights Watch.
The Special Rapporteur on Disability on Making International Protection Of Adults Consistent With The CRPD “A similar revolution of ideas is now permeating the field concerning the rights of older persons. Any future treaty on the rights of older persons is also likely to be grounded on dignity and autonomy. ” (Jul, Gerard Quinn)
Five priorities to tackle abuse of older people (1) combat ageism; (2) generate more and better data on prevalence and on risk and protective factors; (3) develop and scale up cost–effective solutions; (4) make an investment case for addressing the issue; and (5) raise funds to tackle the issue. (Jun, Decade of Healthy Ageing)
An easy-read version on how older people are treated very badly and what countries should do to make sure that older people get their human rights. (link to pdf, Jun, Independent Expert for UNHRC)
Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing Country Progress reports (UNECE)
A policy brief on Better protecting the human rights in older age and the work of the UN group exploring this issue. (BAGSO)
Low Income Puts Older People’s Rights at Risk. Brief recap on ageing issues, and international discussions to start a drafting a treaty protecting older people's rights. (May, Human Rights Watch)
A meeting of the working group dedicated to strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons. (Apr, UNDESA)
UN Advocacy Brief on Older Women: Inequality at the Intersection of Age and Gender (Mar, Decade of Healthy Ageing)
A background paper Measuring the Autonomy, Participation, and Contribution of Older People (link to pdf, March, Center for Inclusive Policy)
As part of the Age with Rights campaign a Global Rally calling for the stronger protection and promotion of older people's human rights. (Mar, Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People) See also from Human Rights Watch.
Baseline Report for the Decade of Healthy Ageing. It's striking to see how this summary avoids mentioning disability when its first page is basically an illustration of an adapted social model of disability. (Jan, WHO)
Statement on Ageing with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus
'Related – perhaps inseparable – from the physical health challenges faced by SBH adults and increased reports of mental health challenges. The lived experiences of many SBH adults involves increased isolation – in large part due to the changes in physical health described above, that can make it more difficult to enjoy a full social life. It is not surprising then that many people report an increase in anxiety and depression. This can result in a negative cycle, as people are less likely to make the effort to see others, which further increases the sense of isolation. ' (Dec, IF Global)
Assistive Technology
Back to contents.
WHO releases new Wheelchair provision guidelines (Jun, WHO)
Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface: “a digital bridge between the brain and spinal cord that enabled an individual with chronic tetraplegia to stand and walk naturally in community settings” (May, Nature)
‘Care bots’: a dream for carers or a dangerous fantasy? (May, the Guardian)
Sony launches point-and-shoot camera for people with vision disabilities. (Mar, Disability Insider)
HearX hearing care by community health workers using digital technologies. (Feb, AT2030)
AT Venture Fund Playbook “This playbook was designed to help current and future fund operators and ventures learn from the work of the Assistive Technology Impact Fund (ATIF). It aims to share lessons from launching a fund in a nascent sector and working with a small portfolio of assistive technology ventures.” (Jan, AT Impact Fund)
COVID-19, access and assistive technology: The need for preparedness (Dec, Global Social Policy)
Digital Planet audio feature on is disability tech delivering? (no transcript, Aug, BBC)
Marketing Matters on how AT startups need to invest in marketing (Jul, AT2030)
The Global Report on Assistive Technology: a new era in assistive technology (Jun, Assistive Technology)
Making the direct to consumer model work for Assistive Technology warns about “unintended charitable consequences”:
“AT distribution that depends on charitable and philanthropic funding are highly vulnerable to financial cuts and changes in priorities. What’s more, AT distribution cannot be a one-off event like a vaccination camp. Distributed AT must be maintained, adapted and changed as the needs of the user change. Few charitable models are able to accommodate such a model- over time, people can be left with AT that is no longer fit for purpose, and disillusioned as to its value.” (Jul, AT2030)
A scoping review of Technologies Measuring Manual Wheelchair Propulsion Metrics (May, Assistive Technology)
Interesting discussion on Center for Inclusive Policy on Why is access to assistive technology not a global priority? (May, CIP)
What do you call technology that's meant to be assistive but isn't? This essay explores the term Disability Dongle coined by Liz Jackson to refer to well intended but useless “solutions“. The essay explores experience of what happens when the authors call out these technologies and how their idea has spread. (Apr, Platypus)
Evidence brief on promoting access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Settings. "Limited access to assistive technology is exacerbated by the lack of awareness about assistive technology and what the technology can offer to people with disabilities". (Dec, Disability Evidence Portal)
A systematic review of global population-based research Estimating need and coverage for five priority assistive products. “The finding of high unmet need (>60%) for each of the five APs emphasises the need to secure political prioritisation and funding to expand access to AT globally.” (Jan, BMJ Global Health)
TIDAL N+ "Transformative Innovation in the delivery of Assisted Living Products and Services" - "building a transdisciplinary network" (Jan, GDI)
Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology (Dec, Assistive Technology Journal)
UNICEF to introduce 24 new assistive products into the global Supply Catalogue. "Through global tenders, UNICEF and WHO have been able to negotiate low-cost prices which will ensure these highly technical and specialized pieces of equipment can be quickly and easily ordered by field teams, partners, and governments." (Dec, UNICEF)
Measuring assistive technology supply and demand a scoping review (Dec, Assistive Technology Journal)
Black Lives Matter and Racial justice
Back to contents.
DisCrit Expanded a collection of essays where “a diverse group of authors engage in inward, outward, and margin-to-margin analyses that raise deep and enduring questions about how we as scholars and teachers account for and counteract the collusive nature of oppressions faced by minoritized individuals with disabilities, particularly in educational contexts. ” (Feb, TC Press)
COVID-19
Back to contents.
Impact
Why are people with intellectual disabilities clinically vulnerable to COVID-19? (Apr, Lancet Public Health)
Spaces of Exclusion and Neglect: The Impact of COVID-19 on People With Disabilities in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Uganda. (Mar, Space and Culture)
An issue of Social Inclusion journal dedicated to Disability and Lessons from the Pandemic. (Jan, Social Inclusion)
“Vulnerable” or Systematically Excluded? The Impact of Covid-19 on Disabled People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. “We highlight the multiple exclusions faced by disabled people across the sectors of health, education, economy, community, and pandemic management.” (Aug, Social Inclusion)
International Perspectives: Disabilities, Social Connectedness, and COVID-19 the experiences of three Special Olympics International (SOI) connected families and how they navigated the pandemic. (Jul, Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness)
Millions of older people have died without being counted. WHO estimates 83% of excess mortality was among older people. (May, HelpAge)
Five ways older women are affected by the pandemic. “With only 35% of older women confirming daily mobility out of their house by themselves, 2 in 3 older women faced restricted mobility.” (Mar, UN Women)
Response
The inclusion of disability and ageing in COVID-19 hygiene behavior change interventions across low-and middle-income countries: A review using the COVID-19 Inclusive WASH Checklist. “Most organizations identified people with disabilities, older adults and caregivers as target groups, but targeted activities to include them were scarce. Where efforts were made, immediate needs rather than rights were addressed.” (Nov, Frontiers Public Health)
Rising to the challenge: disability organisations in the COVID-19 pandemic (Aug, Disability and Society)
For Canadians with disabilities, multiple types of support were important during COVID-19. (Sep, the Conversation)
After 2 Years of Covid, We’re Still Failing Older People. Part of a series marking the two year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic:
"Two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world are still failing to protect the rights of older people. From ageist comments by public figures to persistent staffing shortages and use of chemical restraints in care homes, the protection of older people’s rights has been put under the spotlight like never before -- and comes up lacking." (Mar, Human Rights Watch)
Key Concepts: Human Rights and the Economy a series on human rights on the economic recovery from the COVID crisis. (Not about disability - but maybe useful context, Feb, CESR)
The Global Platform Reader on COVID-19 and older people in low and middle-income countries (link to pdf, Jan, Corona Older)
An evidence brief on How can health and social care services promote the safety and well-being of people with intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs? (Nov, Disability Evidence)
Living with COVID
What Makes Brain Fog So Unforgiving “Brain fog isn’t like a hangover or depression. It’s a disorder of executive function that makes basic cognitive tasks absurdly hard.” (Sep)
Long covid sufferers share stories of chronic fatigue, other symptoms. Five profiles from around the world. (Aug, Washington Post)
If You’re Suffering After Being Sick With Covid It’s Not Just in Your Head. After the 1918-19 influenza pandemic:
‘Many who survived became enervated and depressed. They developed tremors and nervous complications. Similar waves of illness had followed the 1889 pandemic, with one report noting thousands “in debt and unable to work” and another describing people left “pale, listless and full of fears.”’ (Aug, NYT)
Long covid could change the way we think about disability (Jun, Washington Post)
Many Long COVID Patients Identify as Disabled and Feelings Are Complicated (May, Verywell Mind)
Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19? (Feb, Nature)
Civil Society and Community
Back to contents.
Leave no one behind: a promise in peril. A campaign to keep the Sustainable Development Goals on track. (Jun, Sightsavers)
How representative are organisations of persons with disabilities? Data from nine surveys suggest that “about a third of people with disabilities were aware of OPDs and fewer than 15% were members”. Personally I have doubts that the outcome measures justify this finding, as they seem to be about disability organizations more generally. (Jun, Disability & Society)
Beyond Identity Funding: Rethinking Social Justice Philanthropy. A thoughtful and personal exploration of what funders can do differently. (May, NPQ)
Foundation Giving for Disability: Priorities and Trends reports. About 2% of 2019 grantmaking went to disability-related grants. And, on top of that, it mostly focusses on services and supports rather than rights and justice. (Jan, Disability and Philanthropy)
Our Resistance stories of disability rights activists. (Dec, We are Purposeful)
Ridiculous Excuses not to be inclusive short, entertaining video of excuses people have used, including: “I'm sorry, but we already have one of those kids”. (Mar, CoorDown)
Centering the Voices of Disabled Youth Activists (Jan, Women Enabled)
Understanding Minority Youth with Disabilities Through Data and Personal Experience: resources for Centers for Independent Living. (Dec, Mathematica)
Let's End Disability Stigma short video from people with disabilities around the world. (Dec, CBM UK)
Resourcing Disability Justice: Our Feminist Journey Toward Centring Disability Justice. (Link to PDF, Nov, Purposeful)
Book review of Deaf Empowerment: Resistance and Decolonization “an important book that provides new perspectives on Deaf empowerment.” (Oct, H-Disability)
Not just ticking the box: Findings of IDA's Global Survey on participation of organizations of persons with disabilities. In the face of “threats to civic participation and heightening barriers” to participation, there is increasing engagement with international organizations but decreasing engagement with governments. (Jun, IDA)
The 2022 D-30 Disability Impact List “honors the unique accomplishments of our most impactful community members globally” (Jul, Diversability)
The United Nations and others celebrated World Down Syndrome Day (Mar, UN)
Climate Crisis and Environment
Back to contents.
Overview
Discussion paper on climate change and disability rights. A study in Bangladesh, Kenya and Nepal. “Lack of transparency of government budgets both centrally and decentralised across different ministries makes it difficult to understand where money is being spent and potentially being re-allocated during times of climate crisis.” See also videos from Malawi and Zimbabwe. (Jun, CBM UK)
Debrief Feature: A just transition for disabled people. A disability lens on greening economies and society (May, Disability Debrief)
Enabling Commons Thoughtful conversations hosted by the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: “This podcast is a space for dialogue among persons with disabilities to explore strategies that will transform our environments, our commons, to be meaningfully enabling for all.” (May, DICARP)
On the Debrief: Where disability and climate meet. Disabled wisdom and an invitation to community. (Apr, Disability Debrief)
Nothing about us without us: The urgent need for disability-inclusive climate research. (Mar, Plos Climate)
The role of the scientific community in strengthening disability-inclusive climate resilience. “We discuss how the scientific community could advance and hasten the development of disability-inclusive climate resilience, and which areas should be prioritized.” (Jan, Nature Climate Change) See also a blog summarising the comment (HPOD).
An issue on Mental Health & Climate Justice including research on women with psychosocial disabilities in intersecting disasters and climate change. (Dec, Mariwala Health Initiative Journal)
Illegalized Bodies: Addressing Disabled Vulnerabilities and Adaptation to Climate Change based on case studies from the US and Philippines. (Dec, Towson University Journal of International Affairs)
The CRPD and Climate Action. Links between the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Climate Change. (Nov, Gerard Quinn)
A status report updating the review of Disability Rights in National Climate Policies. (Link to PDF, Nov, IDA)
Global Impact of Climate Change on Persons with Albinism: A Human Rights Issue. (Jan, Journal of Climate Change and Health)
Some good news for persons with disabilities from COP27. (Nov, IDA)
Missing in Climate Action Stories of persons with disabilities from the Global South combined with exploration of ableism and environmental justice.
Leave No One Behind a report on people with disabilities and older people in climate-related disasters. An overview of recent evidence and experiences directly from disabled people themselves. (Nov, Human Rights Watch)
Can COP27 contribute to disability-inclusive climate justice? (Nov, Disability Debrief)
Disability Debrief compilation of resources on climate change and disability lovingly put together by Áine. (Nov)
How climate change affects mental health highlighting dimensions of concern. (Nov, Wellcome)
A policy brief on realizing disability rights through a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies (Nov, ILO)
Cripping Climate Activism piece with beautiful illustrations on advocating at the intersections of disability, gender and climate. (Oct, Women Enabled International)
Climate policy and activism need to make space for disabled people. (Oct, BMJ)
The Barriers and Enablers of persons with disabilities as climate change agents. Based on research in Bangladesh and Madagascar:
“Persons with disabilities have knowledge and ideas which stem from their every-day life experiences dealing with risk and social and structural barriers creating problem-solving skills invaluable in the fight against climate change. Furthermore, persons with disabilities are clearly highly impacted by climate change and have experiences and perspectives which may contribute valuable insight in mainstream climate discourses.” (Sep, LUP Student Papers)
Interview with Pauline Castres on importance of climate policy, justice and activism for people with disabilities. (Sep, WID)
Global Disability Justice In Climate Disasters: Mobilizing People With Disabilities As Change Agents (Oct, Health Affairs)
Climate change disasters are a disability rights issue. (Sep, Yahoo)
Disability Debrief feature: Disability in the Heat Why authorities need to prioritise people at highest risk as temperatures rise
(Jul, Disability Debrief)
Heatwaves worsen mental health conditions (Jul, the Conversation)
Environmental Justice inclusive of disability animated videos telling the story through a character called Sofía. (in Spanish, ONG Inclusiva) Also available with English subtitles.
Report on Disability Inclusion in National Climate Commitments and Policies The 2015 Paris Agreement calls on countries to outline the measures they will take to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. Fewer than one in four countries make references to persons with disabilities in these plans, and where they do, it is often cursory. (Jun, IDA and McGill) See also coverage on the Guardian.
A briefing note for the Bonn Climate Conference 2022 on integrating human rights to climate action. (Jun, Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group)
A discussion exploring Climate Change, Environmental Activism, and Disability (SSIR)
Resource Page on Connections Between Climate Change and Disability (Disability & Philanthropy Forum)
See previously on the Debrief, Responses to climate change leaving disabled people behind on the IPCC report and recent floods in Australia. (Apr, Disability Debrief)
What I wish non-disabled people understood about disability and plastic. An illustrated coming showing “disabled people often suffer most from plastic pollution, but many also rely on plastic products for health, independence and dignity.” (Mar, Greenpeace)
Climate and sport: Paralympic champion Tatyana McFadden explains the link. (Apr, UN)
A policy paper on Locating disability inclusion in action on climate change with advice targeted to the UK government to make their climate action disability-inclusive. (Mar, CBM UK)
A feature exploring the link between disability and sustainability particularly from the view of the private sector. (Mar, Valuable 500)
On the IPCC report: Scant mention of disabled community, despite higher risk of climate change impact. (Mar, Stuff)
The missing conversation about disabled leadership in climate justice. "Disabled people are expert adapters – we spend our lives figuring out how to live and thrive in a world which was not designed for us." (Mar, Stuff)
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. "Across sectors and regions the most vulnerable people and systems are observed to be disproportionately affected. " Recommends that inclusive governance address vulnerabilities and inequalities related to disability. (March, IPCC)
The Sangyan's posts on climate change include reflections on Climate Change, Disability, and the Capability Approach and the displacement of people with disabilities as climate refugees. (Mar, Sangyan)
Disability and Climate Justice an overview of the current situation and recommendations to take forward (link to pdf, Dec, Open Society Foundations)
Cop26: Take stock, regroup and keep disability inclusion on the table for climate action "let's do better together". (Jan, Bond)
Policy Brief on the decade of healthy ageing in a climate-changing world (Jan, Decade of Healthy Ageing)
Environmental Justice and Disability with Pauline Castres - YouTube a nice conversation covering key issues and reflecting on COP. (Dec, Judy Heumann)
What is Climate resilient inclusive design and why do we need it? Global Disability Innovation Hub at COP26 (Nov, GDI)
COP 27
Why is disability still waiting for real progress on inclusive climate action? 5 takeaways from COP27. (Jan, Bond)
What has been done and what can still be done. Increasing participation albeit significant access challenges remain. (Dec, EDF)
No climate solution without disability inclusion (Nov, LFTW)
How people with disabilities fought for formal recognition at COP27: “We’re still just trying to get on the agenda”. (Nov, Grist)
People With Disabilities Raise Voices at Climate Talks (Nov, AP News)
Communication and Language
Back to contents.
Overview
Complex to Clear: Tips for Easy-to-Understand Communication (Jun, Inclusion International)
Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability First edition in 2023. (May, JCSCD)
People need to understand information to live their lives independently: about easy-to-read. (Mar, Inclusion Europe)
Sign Languages
Position Paper on Access to National Sign Languages as a Health Need. (Jan, WFD)
Evidence for superior encoding of detailed visual memories in deaf signers. “Our findings add to evidence showing that deaf signers are at an advantage [... in the] retention of detailed visual memories over the longer term.” (May, Scientific Reports)
World Federation of the Deaf celebration of international mother language day: "by specifically recognizing the right of deaf people to have access in all areas of their lives to their Mother Language, sign language." (Feb)
The Global Digital Library has books available in three sign-languages, namely Cambodian, Kenyan and Rwandan.
Braille
World Blind Union calls for increased access to braille on World Braille Day. “Despite obligations arising from international and national law, we know many blind people lack access to braille itself, to appropriate training in braille, and to technologies that facilitate the use of braille”. (Jan, World Blind Union)
Governments urged to increase access to braille (Jan, 1News)
The UN international World Braille Day (4 Jan, UN)
Conflict and Peace
Back to contents.
Mr. Giles Duley appointed as the first United Nations Global Advocate for persons with disabilities in conflict and peacebuilding situations. (Dec, UNDP)
Protection measures needed to support children with disabilities in armed conflict. (Dec, OHCHR)
An edition of the International Review that focusses on Persons with disabilities in armed conflict. “thirty thought-provoking contributions, including many authored by persons with disabilities, jointly take stock of the legal protections (and lack thereof) for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts, and reflect critically how to move the legal and policy debates forward in the next few years.” (Nov, International Review of the Red Cross)
Including civilians with disabilities in the aftermath of war. (Nov, ICRC)
Addressing the accountability void: War crimes against persons with disabilities. How obligations in international humanitarian law can help monitor, protect and address disability-based violations of the law. (Nov, International Review of the Red Cross)
Report on the the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of military operations. Raising and exploring the following question: “In widening the lens of international
humanitarian law to become more consciously self-aware of the realities faced by persons with disabilities in conflicts, what realities become salient in the future and what irreducible realities must be considered in planning or pursuing military
operations?” (Sep, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) See a summary of the report on Gerard Quinn's website.
The Role of Accessibility and Funding in Disability-Inclusive Peacebuilding. “Persons with disabilities can be — and have been — the source of solutions in peacebuilding initiatives. Participants in the roundtable emphasized that persons with disabilities are some of the strongest advocates in building peace, especially after experiencing violence themselves.” (Jul, United States Institute of Peace)
Peace, Disability, and the Violence of the Built Environment Reflections on how disability relates to studies of peace. (May, Peace Review)
Lifting the cloak of invisibility: civilians with disabilities in armed conflict. Discussion of how humanitarian law would relate to disability issues and bringing together conversations between people with disabilities and military representatives. “Steps must be taken to ensure that people living with disabilities and their representative organizations can and do shape the interpretation and implementation of International Humanitarian Law norms relevant to them.” (Apr, ICRC)
Culture, Entertainment and Media
Back to contents.
Overview
How Can Art Reach Out and Touch Us? A primer on haptic tech innovation and new possibilities for access in dance. (Jan, Laurel Lawson)
The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope. “For centuries, fictional narratives have used outer difference to telegraph inner monstrosity. As someone who uses a wheelchair, I’ve learned you can’t just edit out a few slurs or bad words to fix this – it’s often baked deep into the story” (Mar, the Guardian)
On (Not) Discovering Disability in the World of Jane Austen. “Disabled characters are present in Austen’s novels, but largely invisible in her cinematic remakes” (Jan)
Am I ugly? a super-cute video of small figures getting around accessibility, assistive tech and stigma. (No visual description, Jan, Sylvanian Drama, TikTok)
The Group Fighting for Disability Justice in British Museums and Galleries (Nov, Timeout)
Being Seen a new book by Elsa Sjunneson. “A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.” (Nov, Simon and Schuster)
Curating Access a new book, edited by Amanda Cachia on disability art activism and creative accommodation. (Sep, Routledge)
Cripple Punk: The Disabled Young People Smashing Ableism: “Spiked wheelchairs, studs and cigarettes – cpunk is about rejecting society's ‘inspiration porn’ narrative of physical disability.”:
“We need to see more disabled people behaving badly. And no, I don’t mean blind people littering or wheelchair users shoplifting. I mean we need to see more disabled people behaving like everyone else. We need to see more disabled people smoking, drinking and sticking up a middle finger. More disabled people who are angry, bitter and abjectly un-inspirational – because frankly, there are a lot of us. So where have we all been hiding?” (Jul)
Changing the narrative on disability: is representation in books getting better? Article sees increasing representation in children's literature but not “the same commitment to representation in the adult literature sector, where they say disability is still seen as a niche topic.” (May, the Guardian)
‘Deaf Utopia’ review – Nyle DiMarco’s memoir is enlightening, depending on how (and if) you read it (Apr, Limping Chicken)
Adaptive fashion: the $400bn opportunity to embrace Disability inclusion (Feb, MBS Group)
Geelong, an Australian ensemble of disabled actors, wins one of the world’s richest theatre prizes (Mar, the Guardian)
A collection of poems by Disabled and d/Deaf Poets Curated by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I enjoyed Sick4Sick by torrin a. greathouse, which opens:
“I think my lover’s cane is sexy. The way they walk
like a rainstorm stumbles slow across the landscape.” (Poets.org)
23 New And Upcoming Novels With Disabled Main Characters (Mar, Buzzfeed)
Latest issue of Ability Magazine features the actor Greg Grunberg and articles from around the world. (Feb)
Review of Disability Studies special issue on disability, film and media. A wide ranging set of articles from self-presentation on instagram, radio in Kenya and disability metaphors in Korean news. (Feb)
A Different Narrative: Text within Disability Art. "Help the Normals". (Feb, Disability Arts)
TV and Film
Meet James Martin, the First Actor With Down Syndrome to Win an Oscar (Mar, Bright Side)
Unilever calls for production crews to be more inclusive of disability community “For shoots costing more than €100,000 the brand wants to see at least one person who has a disability as a member of the crew.” (May, Campaign)
Netflix Sets a High Bar for Inclusion – and Ensures Disability is Part of the Conversation. “The mere fact that this study has published this data shows Netflix’s desire to be fully inclusive. While the report shows that Netflix has increasingly improved its diversity in many areas in front of and behind the camera, representation of people with disabilities has slid back from 2019” (Apr, Respect Ability)
11 Movies or TV Shows with Authentic Disability Representation. (Apr, Tilting The Lens)
A Position Paper on the Inclusion of the facial difference community. “For almost one hundred years movies have cast scarred characters in different versions of the same roles: villains, vigilantes, victims, outcasts.” (Mar, Face Equality International)
‘Hardly seen as human at all’: will fantasy ever beat its dwarfism problem? (Dec, the Guardian)
Marvel's New Spider-Verse Hero Shows the Struggle of a Real Disease. Marvel's newest Spider-Man variant uses a wheelchair and has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. (Sep, Screen Rant)
Ralph and Katie: Disability Content's Coming of Age. (Oct, Disability Arts Online)
Subtitles can be terrible: profile on Netflix's head of accessibility. “About 40% of Netflix's global users use them all the time, while 80% use them at least once a month, according to the company's internal data.” (Sep, Business Insider)
Bantering Through Disability and Dislocation In “Tuesco,” Daniel Poler documents a Venezuelan family’s use of dark humor to remain buoyant in exile. (Sep, The New Yorker)
Netflix is beefing up its its audio description and subtitling accessibility features and has a collection of its shows celebrating disability. (May, The Verge)
What Season 6 of 'This Is Us' Gets Right About Disability Representation (Apr, The Mighty)
A detailed look at Inevitable Foundation's Cost of Accommodations Report “features line budget research outlining the actual (not presumed) financial impact accommodations can have on TV and film budgets of various sizes as well as a survey of disabled talent on their experiences requesting accommodations”. For example, “30% of disabled talent have had to pay out-of-pocket for their accommodations.” (Apr, Hollywood Reporter)
See analysis and critique of the report from Crip News:
‘“Accommodation” as a framework assumes that we ought not to threaten a status quo. It assumes the benefits of inclusion, where disabled people have access to a process but don’t shape or lead its values. The report is a great example of what we might call inclusionism, accommodationism, incrementalism, or reformism.’
CODA won an Oscar: a flawed triumph for the Deaf community. “The movie and the awards ceremony show the power—and limits—of on-screen representation.” (Mar, Slate) See also the tension at the heart of CODA on the Atlantic.
Team Zenko Go An All-New Disability Inclusive Series From DreamWorks Animation And Mainframe Studios. “Team Zenko Go has managed to avoid all too familiar disability tropes such as, for instance, villains, victims or inspirations.” (Mar, Forbes)
Media
Evidence Brief on how to improve portrayals of people with disabilities in the media. (Jun, Disability Evidence Portal)
‘A View From Somewhere’ DJP Staff, Partners, and Fellows Reflect on Two Years of “Taking Back the Narrative” on Disability (Mar, Disability Justice Project)
Disability Debrief: A disability lens on world news. A vision that grounds the news in our lived experiences. (Feb, Disability Debrief)
Profiles of those awarded Create Fund grants change how people with disabilities are portrayed in media. (Dec, Shuttershock)
Rings of power and privilege: Popular media promotes negative biases towards people with facial differences. (Nov, Psychology Today)
Tips to make your visual journalism more accessible. (Aug, International Journalists' Network)
It's time for the disabled community to take center stage. (Aug, Fortune)
Shutterstock is partnering with disability organizations in a Create Fund for artists from diverse backgrounds that help fill content gaps in stock images, videos and other media. See more on the importance of meaningful visual representation. (Shutterstock)
Clothing and Fashion
These fashion designers are putting braille right on their clothing. (Mar, Fastcompany)
Gucci disrupts disability inclusion. (Jul, Vogue)
Data and Research
Back to contents.
Overview
Disability Data Report 2023 reviews available disability data internationally and explores indicators for 15 countries. (Jun, Disability Data Initiative.)
A learning brief on using the Washington Group questions on disability in development programs. (Jun, CBM Global)
The importance of citizen-generated disability data. (Mar, CBM Global)
Global prevalence of developmental disabilities in children and adolescents: a systematic umbrella review. (Feb, Frontiers in Public Health)
Counting children with disabilities starts with changing minds. (Dec, UNICEF)
Data Dashboard on health and disability, “includes data on overall mortality and COVID-19 mortality for people with disabilities, as well as key health indicators” (Missing Billion)
Module on Child Functioning: Guidance note for translation and customization (Oct, UNICEF)
Harmonizing Disability Data to improve disability research and policy. (Oct, Health Affairs)
Global and regional prevalence of disabilities among children and adolescents: Analysis of findings from global health databases. Comparing data from UNICEF and Global Burden of Disease Study. (Sep, Frontiers Public Health)
An analysis of global prevalence of cerebral palsy. “From the limited but increasing data available from regions in low- and middle-income countries, birth prevalence for pre-/perinatal CP was as high as 3.4 per 1000 live births.” (Aug, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology)
Why is it Important to Identify the Population with Disabilities? an explainer video. (Jun, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)
The association between household wealth and the prevalence of child disability. Analysis of surveys in 40 low- and middle-income countries give “robust evidence that in LMICs the prevalence of child disability is disproportionately concentrated in poorer households.” (July, Disability and Health Journal)
Exploring the Use of Washington Group Questions to Identify People with Clinical Impairments Who Need Services including Assistive Products: Results from Five Population-Based Surveys (Apr, Environmental Research and Public Health)
Why do we need data on women and girls with disabilities? “One way to address this data gap has been the collection and use of qualitative data, including citizen-generated data from organizations of persons with disabilities and NGO allies to complement official statistics to measure gaps and progress. This use of qualitative data is especially important in emergency situations, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic” (Jul, CBM Global)
Explainer video on how the Washington Group question approach to measuring disability relate to the Social Model? (Jun, Center for Inclusive Policy)
Should you use the Washington Group questions in your humanitarian programming? A tool to help you decide. (Jun, Washington Group on Disability Statistics)
World Bank and Microsoft commit to narrow the data gap. With a “disability data hub” they plan to “expand both access to and the use of demographics and statistics data to ensure representation of disability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.” (Jun, Microsoft)
Short video to understand the prevalence of disability (May, Center for Inclusive Policy)
Short video on Why is it important to identify the population with disabilities? (Apr, Center for Inclusive Policy)
Summary of an article on conducting online interviews with disabled young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Mar, International Journal of Social Research Methodology)
Report on how organizations within the UN are using Disability Statistics (link to pdf, Mar, UN)
How will data help us break the cycle of discrimination and intersectional disadvantages for girls and women with disabilities? (Mar, Inclusive Education Initiative)
A video introducing the Center of Excellence on Data for Children with Disabilities (Mar, UNICEF)
The World Bank Open Learning Campus elearning module on Collecting Data on Disability Inclusion. (World Bank)
Why Disability Data Matters Review of Leonard Cheshire’s latest disability data and the Disability Data Portal. "Where disability data does exist, it
can often remain unused. " (link to pdf, Feb, Leonard Cheshire)
All children count: Fostering inclusion through data. (Feb, Data 4 SDGs)
Addressing the dearth of disability-inclusive data in COVID-19 (Jan, Data Values Digest)
Workshop on Innovative methods for researching disability & COVID19 in the Global South for academics and practitioners, on 3rd March. (Disability Under Siege)
FIRAH applied disability research General call for projects - 2022 Project leaders can be from any country in the world but if they're not French then it has to be in partnership with a French organization. (Jan, FIRAH)
Data-driven advocacy for inclusive employment and social protection The experiences of organizations of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh and Kenya (Dec, Leonard Cheshire)
Disability Data Advocacy Toolkit updated version (link to pdf, Dec, CBM Global)
Research
Interview with Arseli Dokumaci on his book "Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds". (With transcript, Jun, Newbooks Network)
Research Handbook on Disability Policy “Examining how policy affects the human rights of people with disabilities, this topical Handbook presents diverse empirical experiences of disability policy and identifies the changes that are necessary to achieve social justice.” List price $425. (Jun, Elgar)
Midgetism: a book on the Exploitation and Discrimination of People with Dwarfism. (Apr, Routledge)
Intellectual disability a perspective on how anthropology can study intellectual disability: “anthropological research reveals dimensions of the social and cultural life of intellectual disability that biomedical and professional research rarely enquires into, let alone comprehends.” (Feb, Open Enyclopedia of Anthropology)
Crip Genealogies “The contributors to Crip Genealogies reorient the field of disability studies by centering the work of transnational feminism, queer of color critique, and trans scholarship and activism. They challenge the white, Western, and Northern rights-based genealogy of disability studies, showing how a single coherent narrative of the field is a mode of exclusion that relies on logics of whiteness and imperialism.” (Mar, Duke University Press)
Finding Blindness an edited volume bringing together essays on “international constructions and deconstructions” of blindness. (Dec, Routledge)
Sixteen Years since the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: What Have We Learned since Then? A summary of research articles on disability since the Convention. (Sep, Environmental Research and Public Health)
Disability as Rupture a collection on how disability creates “to reconceptualize ethnographic practices and anthropological projects”:
“Because the infrastructures of everyday life are often predicated on “normal” bodies and their capacities, when disabled bodies interact with those infrastructures, the friction that results exposes the underlying norms that guide social life.” (Sep, Cultural Anthropology)
Adapting Disability Research Methods and Practices During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Experiences from the Field (Jul, IDS)
Digital Accessibility and Technology
Back to contents.
Overview
Google Meet grows more inclusive with new closed captioning languages. (Jun, Android Police)
How friendship between NVDA founders Mick Curran and Jamie Teh is changing lives for thousands of blind people. (Jun, ABC News)
Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice and more new accessibility features. “New software features for cognitive, speech, and vision accessibility are coming later this year” (May, Apple)
Japanese Game Studios Are Taking Accessibility to the Next Level. “Developers like Koei Techmo and Tango Gameworks are working to make accessible design a global standard.” (May, Wired)
Games Are More Visually Accessible Than Ever. “Indie and big-name studios alike are innovating new ways to include blind and low-vision players, from text-to-speech to sound cues.” (Apr, Wired)
Create inclusive content with the new Accessibility Assistant in Microsoft 365. (Mar, Microsoft 365 Blog)
Washington Posts sharing its accessibility checklist, testing strategies and considerations. (Jan, Washington Post)
This feature has been disabled: Critical intersections of disability and information studies (Feb, First Monday)
Influencing the Trends of Digital Inclusion: An Interview with Jonathan Hassell (Jan, Accessibility.com)
Blind news audiences are being left behind in the data visualisation revolution: here's how we fix that. (Jan, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism)
Do No Harm Guide: Centering Accessibility in Data Visualization. (Dec, Urban Institute)
How Indie Studios Are Pioneering Accessible Game Design. (Dec, Wired)
The Greatest beautiful music video showing people using assistive technology. (Nov, Apple)
Global report highlights failings in accessibility processes and procurement. “Despite widespread senior endorsement of accessibility and inclusion, most organisations still need to adapt their project processes to embed accessibility.” (Nov, AbilityNet)
‘Hey, GitHub!’ will let programmers code with just their voice, together with AI-assisted code suggestions. (Nov, The Verge)
Discussion of Human-Computer Interaction Accessibility Practice with chronically ill people. (Oct, HCI & Design at UW)
How inclusion drives innovation in Windows 11: “he culture of inclusion within the Windows engineering team has helped to foster the development of more inclusive and delightful Windows experiences for everyone.” (Sep, Windows)
How to Design for Accessibility with Your iOS App (Jul, Intuit Engineering)
Accessibility and QR codes: considerations and guidance for creating accessible experiences with QR codes. (Aug, Tetralogical)
What’s new in Microsoft 365 accessibility for Summer 2022 (Aug, Microsoft)
Tech journalism’s accessibility problem:
“Tech newsrooms (The Verge’s very much included) need informed accessibility coverage. They need articles drawing from firsthand experience. They need to do that without heaping the burden on a small group of disabled writers.” (Jul, The Verge)
A new report, A Digital Cage is Still a Cage “At their most extreme, the use of new and emerging technologies could replicate the worst features of institutional care rather than facilitate independent living and inclusion within the community.” (Jun, University of Essex)
How to make the most of the Mac’s accessibility features (Jul, The Verge)
Celebrate Disability Pride, Uplift Gaming and Disability Communities and Creators with Team Xbox (Jul, Xbox)
By the Blind, For the Blind reflecting in particular on open source software where tools can be full integrated with the operating system. (Jun, Devin Prater)
The Performative A11yship of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (May, Adrian Roselli)
May 19th was Global Accessibility Awareness Day focusing on digital accessibility. (May, GAAD)
The Mobile Disability Gap Report 2021. A report on 7 low- and middle-income countries finds that persons with disabilities are significantly less likely to own a smartphone or use mobile internet. “The disability gap typically widens at each stage of the mobile internet journey” (Dec, GSMA)
Let's Discuss: Mobile World Congress and the mobile disability gap reflections on mobile and digital inclusion (Feb, Valuable 500)
Artificial Intelligence
No, ‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility “Accessibility is about people. It is not a strictly technical problem to be solved with code.” (Jun, Adrian Roselli)
To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health (Jun, Digital Health)
Why Sign Language Translation Poses a Puzzle for AI. (May, Slator)
Microsoft leverages power of AI to improve accessibility for disabled people (May, AT Today)
Public letter and call-to-action on Disability And Algorithmic Risks: From Misuse and Silos to Policing, Law Enforcement and Unacceptable Risk Systems. “Existing approaches to understanding high and unacceptable-risk systems still miss disability-specific vocabulary, scenarios and associated risks” (Yonah.org)
A memo on disability-centered AI and algorithms. (Yonah.org)
Can ChatGPT Make The World More Accessible? (Apr, Accessibility.com)
AI for Accessibility: discussion of opportunities and challenges. (Mar, Equal Entry)
Equally AI Releases ChatGPT-Powered Report on Web Accessibility Websites in the US, Urges Business Leaders to Prioritize Inclusivity. (Mar, PR Web)
How ableist algorithms dominate digital spaces “From clumsy social media ads to problematic automation in recruitment, algorithms are often unintentionally stacked against disabled professionals” (Feb, IT Pro)
Cognitive diversity-centred AI can improve social inclusion. “Artificial intelligence can address some of the challenges and discrimination that people with cognitive diversity and other disabilities face in everyday life.” (Apr, World Economic Forum)
Ableism and ChatGPT: Why People Fear It Versus Why They Should Fear It:
“If ChatGPT can be used to make education more accessible, then why are so many educators against it? I suspect that part of the reason is that ChatGPT threatens to disrupt able-bodied privilege, which is an entrenched feature of the education system—something used to make decisions about grading, publishing, and hiring.” (Mar, APA Blog)
AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem: “AI recruitment tools have become the first line of defence against high-volume online hiring. But unless the unintended consequences of AI-powered HR technology are urgently addressed, hundreds of millions of people worldwide face lifetimes of economic and societal exclusion” (Mar, The Forum Network)
Be My Eyes Announces New Tool Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Improve Accessibility for People Who are Blind or Have Low-Vision. (Mar, Business Wire) See background on the collaborations that made it happen, and a reflective piece on riding the AI hype wave.
GPT-4's new capabilities power a 'virtual volunteer' for the visually impaired (Mar, TechCrunch)
ChatGPT-powered web accessibility platform launched (Jan, BusinessCloud) Remember to great this kind of news with healthy scepticism.
Apple's New AI Audiobooks Are Great for Accessibility, Bad for Voice Actors (Jan, Lifewire)
Common AI language models show bias against people with disabilities: ‘when a disability-related term followed “good” in a sentence, the AI generated “bad.”’ (Oct, The Hill)
Artificial Intelligence Is Dangerous For Disabled People At Work: 4 Takeaways For Developers And Buyers. (Oct, Forbes)
Humanity should get the best from AI, not the worst Statement from Gerard Quinn, whose report we explored previously. (May, OHCHR)
Bot can spot depressed Twitter users in 9 out of 10 cases (Apr, Tech Xplore)
A new alliance for Disability Ethical? AI led by Scott Parker International, IBM, Oxford Brookes and others. "AI powered recruitment technology threatens the life chances of hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide, as well as those of us who will become disabled in time." (March, Includes a collection of resources)
Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities study on artificial intelligence and the rights of persons with disabilities. (link to pdf, Feb, UN) See also at EDF.
Policy Brief on Ageism in artificial intelligence for health (Feb, WHO)
Online Accessibility
The WebAIM Million: The 2023 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages. (Mar, WebAim)
Are you making these five mistakes when writing alt text? (Mar, The A11Y Project)
Meet the first-ever accessibility engineer at The Washington Post. (Feb, Nieman Lab)
A guide to writing accessible image captions. (Feb, Mashable)
What's New in WCAG 2.2 Draft (Jan, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI))
WordPress 6.1 Accessibility Improvements. (Oct, Make Wordpress Core)
The History of Digital Accessibility (Oct, Storyly)
New Brutalism and web accessibility: brutalist style and its interactions with accessibility. (Oct, UX Collective)
Yes, accessibility is also a backend concern. “Backend developers wield a tremendous amount of power, as they help shape the underlying structure of what is and is not possible when creating a digital experience.” (Sep, Eric W Bailey)
Verifying the Disability Equality Index by measuring how their website conforms with web-access standards: “the DEI score is not a good predictor of the accessibility score.” (Sep, jpdev.pro)
A how-to on using Firefox for accessibility testing “Firefox has become one of the best tools for accessibility audits.” (Jul, The A11Y Project)
Q&A: Patrick Garvin The creator of two web accessibility bots talks alt text and accountability. “If accessibility is only pitched as something that’s related to code or only related to computers, it’s going to be real easy for people in newsrooms to distance themselves from that.” (Jul, Objective Journalism)
What's Happening with Digital Accessibility in 2022 (Jul, UsableNet)
Web3 must learn from the past: People with disabilities are the largest untapped demographic (Jul, Venture Beat)
Exploration of alt-text including detailed advice (Jun, Accessible Social)
Digital Accessibility: The Next Frontier of Disability Rights Includes a discussion on justifying digital accessibility because of legal compliance or as an opportunity for growth, preferring the latter, quoting this reasoning: “[Focusing on lawsuits] capitalizes on this fear that disabled people are out there to sue you and make your life difficult …. It furthers this really horrible view of disabled people that we’re literally out there to get money and that we just use our disabilities for that.” (Jun, Women Enabled International)
Why Are iFrame Titles Important for Accessibility? (May, Bureau of Internet Accessibility)
An accessibility review of public and private sector websites shows private sector websites significantly worse. Even big companies that have made commitments on disability inclusion through membership of Valuable 500 still only offer a median accessibility score of 52.6, a fraction lower than the median score of Fortune 500 websites. (May, Silktide)
Microsoft Edge site ALT text adds more “making the web a more inclusive and accessible place, starting with the blind and low vision community.” (Microsoft)
5 Ways Delivery Apps Don't Deliver On Accessibility (May, UsableNet)
Rich Screen Reader Experiences for Accessible Data Visualization
“Although our design dimensions highlight a diverse landscape of screen reader experiences for data visualizations, our study participants attested to the value of following existing best practices. Namely, alt text and data tables provide a good baseline for making visualizations accessible. Thus, visualization authors should consider adopting our design dimensions to enable more granular information access patterns only after these initial pieces are in place.” (MIT Visualization Group)
WordPress 6.0 Features Numerous Accessibility Improvements (Apr)
Does Your Website Have Have Any of These 10 Most-Cited Accessibility Issues? (Apr, Equal Entry)
Takeaways from The Internet is Unusable: The Disabled View (Apr, Lireo Designs)
New Department of Justice ADA Web Accessibility Statement reiterating that accessibility online is covered by disability discrimination. (Mar, BOIA)
Zoom Continues to Miss the Boat on True Accessibility. (Mar, Living with Hearing Loss)
The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible a feature on alternative text for images (Feb, NYT)
The case for describing race in alternative text attributes (Jan, Tolu Adegbite)
How creating an accessible product helped Stark build an inclusive team "You can’t build an accessible product without breaking down internal silos first" (Feb, The Drum)
Disabled And Here "a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective" (Affect the Verb)
6 Tips to make your Tweets more accessible and inclusive (Twitter)
A chrome plug-in Wordle for Screen Readers. Great game, and good to see some accessibility retrofitted: see also a site that gives you descriptive text to allow sharing the results in an accessible way. Another disappointing example of how things can go viral without accessibility being baked in.
Email Accessibility 4 Best Practices for Marketers (Jan, BOIA)
Technology
The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened? “For people who can’t speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.” (Jun, MIT Technology Review)
Life is About to Come with Subtitles “Automated live captions used to be terrible. But they’re becoming transformative for people who can’t hear.” (May, The Atlantic)
Google Project Gameface: A new hands-free AI-powered gaming mouse (May, Google)
Inclusive AR/VR: accessibility barriers for immersive technologies. (Feb)
Xbox lead dev talks about the future of video game accessibility (Feb, Polygon)
What does accessibility in the metaverse look like? (Jan, Vogue)
The accessibility charity helping Xbox and PlayStation: SpecialEffect. (Jan)
Sony Releases Its First Accessible Controller. “The company unveiled Project Leonardo, a fully customizable, accessible console game controller, built with the help of the disabled community.” (Jan, Wired)
Virtual Reality Accessibility: 11 Things We Learned from Blind Users (Nov, Equal Entry)
Disability Inclusion Is Coming Soon to the Metaverse (Jun, PC Mag)
For people with disabilities Consumer Electronics Aren't There Yet (Jul, PCMag)
The Hidden History of Screen Readers: For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs. (Jul, The Verge)
Android gets enhanced accessibility features (Jun, Chrome Unboxed)
Apple previews innovative accessibility features (May, Apple)
Accessibility Virtual Reality Meetup: What Is It Like in Spatial? See also an interview on how a blind person can use virtual reality. (May, Equal Entry)
Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories: Buttons and mice that you can adapt for your body and needs (May, The Verge) See also a short introductory video.
Virtual Reality Is Here to Stay. It's Time to Make It Accessible. VR "needs to be more open-minded when it comes to what its ideal gamer looks like.":
"VR’s reliance on physical movements can be a deterrent for many players with motor disabilities. Beyond that, the headsets and screen resolution can lead to numerous barriers for low-vision users, so much so that games without appropriate features or accessible design are completely unplayable. And as accessibility evolves, the presence of VR is indicative of an industry that still has much to learn." (Mar, Wired)
Virtual Reality Accessibility: The Importance of Comfort Ratings and Reducing Motion (Feb, Equal Entry)
Social Media
Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout “Some disabled users fear the API changes will threaten their ability to access the site. Because both Reddit’s website and its official app fall short of their needs, they rely on third-party applications to navigate Reddit.” (Jun, The Verge)
Fake sign language is spreading on TikTok. “Sign language has become trendy on TikTok, but many videos feature incorrect signs, sparking fears the trend will cause lasting damage to American Sign Language” (May, Washington Post) see also the same problem in New Zealand.
Deaf people like me deserve better than MrBeast’s latest piece of ‘inspiration porn’. ‘After coming under fire for a video in which he helped treat 1,000 people’s blindness, Donaldson decided to double down on videos in which he would go out of his way to “help” people from the disabled community’. (May, The Independent)
Digital Action Pack Accessible Services Social Media Toolkit (Women Enabled)
MrBeast, Welcome to the #BlindNewWorld ‘As we watched the "MrBeast cured blindness" story unfold online, we wrestled with understandably complicated feelings. Here's where we landed.’ (Blind New World)
Twitter is getting rid of its free API tier. That's a nightmare for accessibility activists. What will happen to all the good bots? (Feb, Mashable)
Twitter’s Layoffs Are a Blow to Accessibility among the many layoffs were the team working on accessibility. (Nov, Wired)
Twitter Was a Lifeline for People With Disabilities. Musk’s Reign Is Changing All of That (Nov, Time)
More than Just a Hashtag: Disability and TikTok (Nov, PBS)
Disability takes center stage on TikTok “Disabled people's accounts are visible in a way that they are not on other platforms, as they are favored by TikTok's For You page and its discovery-oriented algorithm.” (Aug, Le Monde)
Slack Commits To Making The Digital Workplace ‘More Accessible And Equitable’ (Aug, Forbes)
How we're improving the Discord experience for everyone (Jul, Discord)
LinkedIn Top Voices in Disability Advocacy: The 12 creators to follow (Jul, Linkedin)
Twitter reports that only .06% of images on Twitter are accessible. This too often includes tweets from organizations working on disability. (May, Twitter)
12 Disabled LGBTQIA+ Activists and Advocates Who You Need to Know (Jun, World Institute on Disability)
Older people using TikTok to defy ageist stereotypes, research finds (May, the Guardian)
A new TikTok feature changed the game for deaf users. Now, 'DeafTok' is a thriving, inclusive community. (Apr, Business Insider)
Twitter begins rollout of alt text badges for greater accessibility (Mar, Engadget)
How Captions In TikTok Videos And Dictionary.com Are Remaking Internet Culture And How We Literally Talk About Disability In Tech (Mar, Forbes)
Accessibility on Twitch: the complications of streaming (Feb, Euro Gamer)
Twitch streamers campaign for Disability Pride Month (Jan, Euro Gamer)
Disaster Risk Reduction and Crisis Response
Back to contents.
Disability should not be a death sentence: global disaster response must be inclusive. (Jun, The BMJ)
Position paper on the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. And takeaways from the midterm review. (May, CBM Global)
California’s power outages are a life-and-death issue. The impacts of storms for people with disabilities, powerfully illustrated by Alice Wong's own experience and potential harm she would face during a power outage. (Jan, High Country News)
Towards more inclusive disaster risk-management policies (Nov, World Bank)
Feature on why are people with disabilities left out of disaster planning? (Oct, Aljazeera)
Guidance Note on Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management Operations An Exploration of Good Practices and Resources. (Sep, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery)
Short video on The Importance of Disability Inclusive Disaster Preparedness (Mar, CBM Australia)
Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DIDRR) Critical Insights and Good Practices from the Field (link to pdf, CBM)
Including Persons with Disabilities in Disaster Risk Reduction: A Research Study from Eight Countries around the world:
“The study revealed that most disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction initiatives come from non-governmental stakeholders, rather than government agendas aimed at prioritizing and institutionalizing disability inclusion. These initiatives are often reactive (following disaster responses by governments and I/NGOs) or project-based (externally funded instead of being included in the annual budget planning), which raises concerns about the sustainability of these actions and the DiDRR itself.” (May, Relief Web)
UNDRR page on disability inclusion in disaster risk reduction including description of how disability is included in its Strategic Framework 2022-2025. (Jan)
A brief on Inclusion of Marginalised Groups in Social Assistance in Crises (Feb, IDS)
Working paper on the The Risks and Outcomes of Getting Help for Marginalised People: Navigating Access to Social Assistance in Crises. Includes a section on persons with disabilities. (Feb, IDS)
High Risk in Conflicts for Children with Disabilities “Armed conflict takes a devastating toll on children with disabilities, yet governments and the UN have not done nearly enough to protect them." (Feb, Human Rights Watch)
UNDRR webinar Disability inclusive disaster risk reduction – still a tick marking exercise? (14 Feb)
Bridging the divide understanding collaborative action in disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction through socio-cultural activity theory: exploring the collaboration between people with and without disabilities. (Jan, Emerald)
Economics and Social Protection
Back to contents.
Overview
Poverty of disabled people: more poor, worse nutrition and little coverage of social schemes. (In Spanish, Apr, Yo También.)
Things have just gotten worse The impact of the global food, fuel and finance crisis on older persons. (Apr, HelpAge) See a blog on older people at the sharp end.
Multidimensional Measures and the Extra Costs of Disability: How Are They Related? Exploring whether multidimensional poverty measures can be used to study the extra costs of disability. (Jan, IJERPH)
PWDs Threaten To Demonstrate Over High Cost of Living. “Cost of food and transport fares, in particular, have gone up automatically and that has brought untold hardship on PWDs across the country. Our members spend more on transport because of the peculiar nature of our problem”. (Nov, DailyGuide Network)
Spark Inclusive a help-desk for resources on disability inclusion in rural economies. (Aug, IFAD and LFTW)
Financial Inclusion
Inclusive Banking: emerging practices and a call to action to enhance economic inclusion of persons with disabilities. (Apr, IFC)
A Mastercard brief on Bridging the Disability Gap with inclusive financial services, focussing on accessibility of financial services. (May, Mastercard)
Fintech can help improve lives of people with disabilities (May, China Daily)
Key sheet on Women's Economic Empowerment and Disability Inclusion in Financial Services. (link to pdf, WOW Helpdesk)
Social Protection
Evidence brief on ensuring older men and women with disabilities are equally included in social protection programmes. (Jan, Disability Evidence Portal)
Guidance note for consultation: Towards Inclusive Social Protection Systems Enabling Participation and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (Jun, UNICEF / ILO)
On the Debrief: How do we look after each other? Rethinking care systems with policy and personal experience (Apr, Disability Debrief)
A Framework for Evaluating the Adequacy of Disability Benefit Programs and its Application to the U.S. Social Security Disability Programs. “The results indicate that more than 50 percent of older adults of working-age with work-disabilities in the U.S. do not receive SSD benefits, though rates of benefit receipt are higher than the average across other high-income countries” (Jan, Journal of Social Policy)
Report on the support systems to ensure community inclusion “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated discussions on care systems; such discussions recognize the need to transform traditional care models so that they protect equally the rights of those receiving and providing care. [This report] highlights the human right of persons with disabilities to be included in the community within the current global developments on care, addressing in this context the specific support needs of persons with disabilities for community inclusion” (Jan, OHCHR)
See also extracts and key points from the report (Inclusion Europe).
Working paper on estimating the Extra Costs for Disability for Social Protection Programs. The paper shows how extra costs can vary dramatically, shows methods to estimate extra costs and how social protection programmes can account for them. (Aug, ILO and UNICEF)
ILO and UNICEF report on the role of social protection in the elimination of child labour. “Studies from Bangladesh, Nepal and Gansu Province, China, have found that children in households where adults are sick or disabled or have missed work are more likely to be in child labour within or outside the household.” (May, ILO)
A message to the IMF and World Bank: Targeted Safety Net Programs Fall Short on Rights Protection. (Apr, Human Rights Watch)
Coalition of international organizations holding a conference on Disability and Social Protection (Mar, Social Protection)
Evidence digest focus issue: Social Protection and Disability See also easy read.
'Approaches by governments with schemes labelled for “poor people with severe disabilities who can’t work or care for themselves” have been widely internalised by disability rights activists, who often perceived social protection as demeaning expression charity rather than as rights-based support. In countries with very minimal social protection systems, leaders of many organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) would rather focus on employment and livelihood programs with the argument “jobs not charity”, not always taking into account challenges faced by those with high support needs, children with disabilities and their families, or older persons with disabilities. As a consequence, in many low- and middle-income countries, the disability movement and their allies did not engage significantly in framing the emergence of social protection systems. ' (links to pdfs, Feb, SD Direct)
Social protection and access to assistive technology in low- and middle-income countries by friend of the newsletter Alex Cote. (Dec, Assistive Technology Journal)
Education and Childhood
Back to contents.
Overview
Evidence brief on impact of collaboration between parents and teachers on children with disabilities in school. (Apr, Disability Evidence Portal)
Focused interventions for girls with disabilities fuelled ‘life-changing’ impact on aspirations and self-esteem. An evaluation of the Girls’ Education Challenge Phase II. (May, Cambridge) See also a blog discussing its results.
Thinking critically about inclusive education in Southern contexts volume 10 of disability and the global south is a special issue dedicated to this. (May, DGS)
For the first time, the State of the World's Children report has a statistical annex with data on children with disabilities. (Apr, UNICEF)
The Routledge International Handbook of Children's Rights and Disability (Apr, Routledge)
Global leadership is needed to optimize early childhood development for children with disabilities. “UNICEF and other international bodies must produce a clear plan that prioritizes development and education for children with disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income settings, as required for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” (Apr, Nature Medicine)
Global State of Inclusion in Education “the vision of international inclusive education is falling short of including all learners, no matter their identity, background, or ability.” (Feb, Special Olympics Global Youth and Education) See also an overview: “too many children with intellectual disabilities remain marginalized.”
Disability Inclusive Pre-Primary Education Landscape Review. (Jan, Education Links)
Measuring inclusive teaching practices that support learning for all. Includes a module with tools on disability. (Jan, World Bank)
Inclusion is better for everyone but children with disabilities are 6 times more likely to be out of school. (Dec, Plan International)
The School That Calls the Police on Students Every Other Day “An Illinois school for students with disabilities has routinely used the police to handle discipline, resulting in the highest arrest rate of any district in the country. In one recent year, half of Garrison School students were arrested.”
Inclusive Education for Learners with Multisensory Impairment: a book that “offers a synthesis of best practice with the latest theory and research”. (Nov, McGraw Hill)
Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities – An evidence and gap map from low- and middle-income countries. See a visualization of data and gaps in different areas. (Dec, UNICEF)
The Inclusion Dialogue “Based on fascinating and unique conversations with leading academic experts across the globe, Joanne Banks uses in-depth interviews to examine current debates in special and inclusive education and provides a clear overview of the key tensions which impact policy and practice across different national contexts. Her book also highlights how inclusive education policies do not always translate into inclusive practices in our schools.” (Dec, Routledge)
The evidence for benefits of flexible and adaptive curricula in inclusive education. (Jul, Disability Evidence Portal)
Tools to support TVET policy makers and education providers to plan and deliver inclusive TVET provision for persons with disabilities (Nov, Leave No One Behind)
Children with learning differences are being excluded (Oct, World Education Blog)
Fact Sheet on Children with Disabilities (Aug, UNICEF)
Transforming education: reflections on the calls made to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. (Oct, Sightsavers)
The world is diverse and education should reflect it by including persons with disabilities. (in Spanish, Sep, UN)
Global Partnership for Education factsheet on on inclusive education for children with disabilities. (Sep, Global Partnership on Education)
UNICEF School Guide to Supporting Marginalized Caregivers of Children with Disabilities “Inclusive practices are supported when there is meaningful family engagement.” (Apr, UNICEF)
Value for Money: “Why investing in children with disabilities is worth every penny” (Jul, Able Child Africa)
The Role of Parenting Interventions in Optimizing School Readiness for Children With Disabilities in Low and Middle Income Settings. “The global agenda urgently needs to move beyond token recognition of this marginalized group to inclusive early child intervention programs that consider existing practices, cultural beliefs, and developmental goals in the targeted communities. Children with disabilities in LMICs should receive culturally sensitive parenting interventions to improve learning and educational outcomes.” (Jun, Frontiers in Pediatrics)
Education Cannot Wait Policy and Accountability Framework on Disability Inclusion: Realizing the right to inclusive and equitable quality education of children and adolescents with disabilities in emergencies and protracted crises (May)
A call to action from a coalition of disability organizations on Transforming Education Summit calling for “resilient and inclusive education systems, equitable financing, and the removal of institutional and social barriers to inclusion so every child can benefit from quality education.” (GLAD)
Testing a wide range of technologies to address the reading needs of marginalized children “35% of the awards supporting solutions for children with disabilities.” (May, World Education Blog)
Deaf education in the developing world: what needs to change post-pandemic? (Jun, Global Partnership on Education)
World Vision's child protection work A visual journey of disability inclusion (April, World Vision)
Dismantling barriers and advancing disability-inclusive education: an examination of national laws and policies across 193 countries:
“While strong guarantees exist across diverse countries, we find that notable gaps remain. Forty-six percent of countries do not broadly prohibit disability-based discrimination through the completion of secondary education. Legislation in 35% of countries does not guarantee persons with disabilities access to integrated education in mainstream education environments along with necessary individualized accommodations through the completion of secondary school. Thirty-one percent of countries that make primary education compulsory do not pair compulsory education with guarantees to integration in mainstream education environments and individualized supports for students with disabilities.” (Apr, International Journal of Inclusive Education)
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) adopted a Joint Statement on the Rights of Children with Disabilities (link to docx, OHCHR)
A short guide on Achieving Quality Education for All (Mar, Centre for Inclusive Futures.)
A research protocol for study of Effectiveness of Inclusive Interventions for Children with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-income Countries. (link to pdf, Mar, UNICEF)
Evidence brief on overcoming issues of access to digital learning for primary school learners with disabilities in LMICs during Covid-19.
“Primary school learners with disabilities continue to face barriers or continue to be left behind in online/digital learning solutions as a result of the enduring implications of the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on education. However, access can be improved if, learners with disabilities, parents and their teachers are consulted in the design and implementation of digital learning solutions.” (Jan, Disability Evidence Portal)
Evidence brief on utilising community resources to detect and support children with disabilities? - (Mar, Disability Evidence Portal)
Researching Disability-Inclusive Education: Perspectives from Researchers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
"Northern scholarship has long dominated the policy discourse on disability-inclusive education. The continued absence of Southern scholarship and overreliance of evidence and perspectives from the North is impeding contextual understanding and action on disability-inclusive education. While the lack of robust evidence is a concern, in parallel, there is an increasing acknowledgment that researchers based in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have limited opportunities to undertake, engage and publish their own research. This impedes their ability to contribute meaningfully to the disability-inclusive education agenda, both at a national and international level." (Feb, IEI)
When All Truly Means Everyone: Fulfilling the Right to Education of Children with Disabilities in Our Global Education Crisis Response. ECW is "committed to reaching 10% of children with disabilities across our investment portfolio. " (Feb, Education Cannot Wait)
An in-depth Inclusive Education Resources and Toolkit "reference for all staff working in education programming to mainstream inclusion in their work" (Jan, Save the Children)
Students with disabilities hardest hit by school closures (Feb, University of Gothenburg)
Further events on the CaNDER Seminar Series engaging seminars bringing researchers and practitioners together. (Feb)
A "landscape review" of ICT for Disability-Inclusive Education (link to pdf, Jan, World Bank)
In Inclusive education, The case for early identification and early intervention in assistive technology: assistive technology enables learning and so children who need it must be identified as soon as possible. (Dec, Assistive Technology Journal)
Best of UNICEF Research 2021: highlights research on support provided to children with disabilities in Montenegro and how children with developmental disabilities in Palestine experience stigma and discrimination. (Jan, UNICEF)
A new book Global Directions in Inclusive Education Conceptualizations, Practices, and Methodologies for the 21st Century. Edited By Matthew J. Schuelka, Suzanne Carrington (Dec, Routledge)
Higher Education
Ableism in the academy “Disabled scholars say they often rely on ad hoc agreements to get the accommodations they need to do their jobs. The lack of formal recognition has left many feeling unprotected and unwelcome in the academic workplace.” (Apr, UA/AU)
Moving labs: a checklist for researchers with disabilities. (Dec, Nature Careers)
A discussion forum on quality higher education for persons with disabilities in low and middle income countries. (Sep, CIP)
A review of the anthology Improving Accessible Digital Practices in Higher Education (Apr, Disability Studies Community)
Employment, Business and Work
Back to contents.
Your Workforce Includes People with Disabilities. Does Your People Strategy? “Most organizations report that their workforce includes relatively few employees with disabilities: just 4% to 7% on average. But in our survey of nearly 28,000 employees in 16 countries, some 25% of people said they have a disability or health condition that limits a major life activity.” (May, BCG)
Why disability-inclusive employment benefits all of us blog discussing programming promoting inclusive employment. (Jun, Sightsavers)
The right to work versus the right to retire “Ageism is still pushing older workers out of the labor market” - a report exploring international trends in older persons work and retirement. (Apr, Allianz)
Evidence Brief on what are the strategies or models that support youth with disabilities to enter into employment? (Mar, Disability Evidence Portal)
World's Largest Clothing Retailer To Double Its Disability Employment Inditex, the owner of Zara “is committing to dramatically increase employment of people with disabilities throughout its operations.” (Jan, Disability Scoop)
ESG and Disability Data white paper a call for inclusive reporting and standardized disability inclusion key performance indicators for businesses. (Jan, Valuable 500) See also a blog on why it's needed.
Livelihood support for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities: findings from a scoping review and stakeholder survey. (Dec, Disability and Rehabilitation)
Proxy agencies for disabled hires grow as firms try to fill quota. “Japanese firms have been using proxy agencies to employ people with disabilities, hiring them to work for unrelated farming projects in a move seen as a way to fulfill official disability quotas, according to a welfare ministry probe and a Kyodo News investigation.” (Jan, Kyodo) Reaction from Barrier Free Japan (brief audio, no transcript).
How can we include people with intellectual disabilities at work? (Dec, Sightsavers)
Creating an inclusive culture actions taken by Valuable 500 members for a more inclusive business culture. (Dec, Valuable 500)
Lost in Translation: A global guide to the language of disability: “seeking to apply a single set of language guidelines across a global organisation is often not the best approach. Instead, recognise cultural and linguistic differences and use the language that your audience speaks – whilst seeking to empower the disabled people you work with and serve.” (Dec, BDF)
Note on ensuring that people with disabilities are not bullied at places of work. (Oct, Disability Evidence Portal)
Capacity to Contribute: We must do more to improve the labour market inclusion of people with disability. (Oct, The OECD Forum Network)
Evidence and good practice paper on approaches to Increasing Employment and Quality of Employment Among Youth with Disabilities. (Nov, DEEP / USAID)
Disability Inclusion in Employment Intensive Investment Programming a stocktaking and way forward on inclusion in public works initiatives. By yours truly. (Oct, ILO)
Barriers to employment for people with intellectual disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: Self-advocate and family perspectives. “Self-advocates shared experiences in the focus groups of workplace bullying, mistreatment by supervisors and colleagues and exploitation in the workplace which indicates that supporting people to overcome barriers and get into a job is insufficient for ensuring inclusion.” (Jun, Journal of International Development)
UN General Comment on the right of persons with disabilities to work and employment clarifying what governments need to do to realize the right to work. (Sep, A summary from European Disability Forum.)
Lessons learned on improving access to employment from Kenya and Bangladesh and the i2i project. (Aug, CBM UK)
Mainstreaming disability inclusive employment in international development: “a key message is that instrumental types of intervention such as policy and practice guidelines, provision of assistive devices and soft skills training for jobseekers with disabilities are necessary but not sufficient to bring about wholesale change towards disability inclusive employment.” (Jul, Journal of International Development)
Achieving disability inclusive employment – Are the current approaches deep enough? A detailed critique of recent programming in international development asking interventions to go deeper:
“Thus, shallow approaches, which do not address deep-seated cultural beliefs and assumptions about disability and disabled people (which are pervasive throughout the ecosystem), are likely to perpetuate the existence of opportunities for the already more privileged elite and further disadvantage the rest.” (Jul, Journal of International Development)
Global Trends Report featuring Technological Innovation for Disability Inclusion. (link to pdf, Jul, Valuable 500)
A policy brief on Making Digital Skills Initiatives Inclusive of Young Persons with Disabilities. (Jul, Decent Jobs for Youth)
The state of disability engagement survey data showing “employees with disabilities are having a far less favorable experience at work than their non-disabled counterparts. These significant differences are far greater than we have found for other diversity groups such as gender, race and sexual orientation.” (Mercer)
An Inclusive Workplaces Toolkit which gives guidance for employers how to make their workplaces inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities. “Creating a workplace that is more inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities primarily requires small tweaks and behaviour changes within a workplace that
make it easier for everyone to understand and be included in work.” (Jun, Inclusion International)
A review of effectiveness of interventions for improving livelihood outcomes for people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries. The review finds studies reporting “positive impacts on livelihood impacts” but given the limited evidence it is hard to conclude about what works. This study calls for more studies. (Jun, Campbell Systematic Reviews)
“This programme is nation-building” reflections at the ending of a disability-inclusive employment programme in Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh and Uganda. (Jun, Inclusive Futures)
Equalising access to the labor market for persons with disabilities based on a project in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. The report makes important points on how initiatives to support employment can have negative effects:
“Too often, employment of persons with disabilities has been approached
through a narrow lens of placing people into jobs, without securing
preconditions for inclusive employment such as inclusive workplace culture, provision of reasonable accommodation, and accessible transportation to work.
Worse, persons with disabilities have often been supported to access only a limited range of jobs based on prevailing stereotypes, usually low-wage and perceived low-skill roles, thereby perpetuating stigma and prejudice about what persons with disabilities can or cannot do. This is particularly the case for most marginalized groups, such as persons with intellectual disabilities.”
It also questions the emphasis on the ”business case” when advocating with employers, and argues for a “critical consciousness on disability amongst employers”:
“The business case approach to promote inclusive employment must
be rooted in human rights and social justice to ensure that a for-profit
argument does not lead to further exclusion of those with high risks
of marginalization. Employers need to recognize past and present
marginalization and discrimination of persons with disabilities and
take active responsibility to transform the labor market to become
open, accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities.” (Jun, IDA)
New ILO database highlights labour market challenges of persons with disabilities. From 60 countries with available data:
“The labour force participation rate of people with disabilities is very low. Globally, seven in ten persons with disabilities are inactive (that is, neither in employment nor unemployed), compared with four in ten persons without disabilities. While the inactivity rate is higher for both women and men with disabilities than for those without, it is particularly high among women with disabilities. This suggests that they face a double disadvantage in the labour market on account of both their sex and their disability status.” (Jun, ILO)
How can public and civil services support people with disabilities into senior roles? (May, Global Government Forum)
This year's Harkin Summit was held in Belfast (Jun, BBC)
What is the future of work for people with disabilities? (May, World Economic Forum)
The Valuable 500 taking action: Inclusive moments from companies in the Valuable 500 network (May, Valuable 500)
LinkedIn Adds ‘Dyslexic Thinking’ To Skills List In Effort To Destigmatize. Dyslexic thinking being seen as ‘strengths in creative, problem-solving and communication skills’. (Mar, The Drum)
Is It The Yuk Factor? Disabilty Advocacy Is Growing Up. Interview with Susan Scott Parker. (Mar, Forbes)
The Valuable 500 Launch World’s First Global Directory of Disability Inclusion Specialists (Mar, Valuable 500)
An ILO report Transforming enterprises through diversity and inclusion. “Overcoming inclusion as a privilege of seniority is key to fully realizing the business benefits it offers” (Apr, ILO)
ILO Global Business and Disability Network Annual Report 2021 (ILO)
What is the current evidence on promoting employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities? Recommends supported employment; little evidence from low- and middle-income countries. (Jan, Disability Evidence Portal)
A spotlight on Inclusion Breakthroughs in 2021 (Feb, Valuable 500)
The upcoming G20, hosted by Indonesia will promote employment for persons with disabilities. (Jan, Antara News)
From the ITCILO with Cornell University, a course on Disability in the Workplace a 90 minutes training. (Jan, ILO)
Gender Equality and Women with Disabilities
Back to contents.
Overview
Resource guide on strengthening gender inclusion in disability rights spaces. (Jun, Women Enabled)
From Beijing to the CRPD: the missing keystone. (Mar, IDA)
The Feminist Accessibility Protocol: “a groundbreaking set of commitments that seek to ensure the inclusion of feminists with disabilities in gender equality spaces.” See also some notes on what it is, and why we need it. (Nov, Women Enabled)
Laws across the world fail to consider disability and gender. A policy brief surveys legislation in 190 economies: only ten of them have mentions of women with disabilities in both their gender equality law and disability rights law. (Oct, World Bank)
A short brief from UN Women “addressing the intersection” of Gender, age, and disability. The brief focusses on older women with disabilities, which is very important to do – but I can't help but be disappointed by this brief not reflecting more deeply on how interventions on gender, age, and disability intersect. (Jun, UN Women)
A Compass to Steer Our Work in Gender Transformation and Inclusion - on steps to put gender equity into practice. (May, DRF)
Policy discussion on barriers for disability organizations, and especially women with disabilities, to be involved in discussions on gender equality. (Apr, Center for Inclusive Policy)
Mama Cash report If you stay quiet, you stay invisible featuring eight profiles of feminist disability rights activism.
"The activist groups featured in this collection are doing ground-breaking work – often with relatively limited resources. Many of them depended on volunteer labour and worked from their homes before they received their first funding. Sufficient and good quality financial and other resources are crucial for sustained activism. This is a key recommendation that most of the activists in this collection made, and one that we feel strongly about emphasising and amplifying. Funders need to provide consistent, long-term, core support so that feminist disability rights groups can strengthen themselves and sustain their work." (Feb)
Empowering women and changing minds on CBM Germany efforts to support women with disabilities. (Jan, D+C)
International Women's Day
CEDAW Committee adopts General recommendation No 39 on the rights of Indigenous Women and Girls: 30 references to disability and to indigenous women and girls with disabilities. (Nov, IDA)
What does it take to create a space for women and girls with disabilities? content of a webinar. (Mar, IDA)
From Light for the World International: Women activists with disabilities say: "#BreakTheBias!" (Mar, LFTW)
CBM Australia stories from women with disabilities. (Mar, CBM)
Sightsavers joining the campaign to #BreakTheBias. (Mar, Sightsavers)
Health
Back to contents.
Overview
Evidence brief on how to remove access barriers to healthcare for people with psychosocial, developmental, and neurological disabilities. (May, Disability Evidence Portal)
Disability is central to discrimination in health “Overlooking disability issues is not just a question of omitting one diversity marker among many. Disability brings with it a range of embodied challenges, with implications regarding functional limitations, compromised access to health care and information, and resultant health outcomes.” (Jun, The Lancet)
WHO guideline for for meaningful engagement of people living with noncommunicable diseases, and mental health and neurological conditions. (May, WHO)
The doctors selling bogus treatments to people facing blindness. (Mar, BBC)
On the Debrief: Healthcare has to be healed The impacts of health inequities and how we take revenge. (Jan, Disability Debrief)
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities and implications for health services research. (Feb, Journal of Health Services Research and Policy)
Achieving Universal Health Coverage fit for an ageing world. (Jan, HelpAge)
Disability-Inclusive Health Care Systems: Technical Note for World Bank Task Teams. “The guide provides the rationale for disability inclusion, tips for engaging in dialogue, information and examples on disability-inclusive practices and operations, and specific guidance on integrating disability into health service programming and delivery supported by the World Bank.” (Nov, World Bank)
Reimagining health systems for a billion people with disabilities. (Dec, BMZ)
Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. See also the press release. “Health systems should be alleviating the challenges that people with disabilities face, not adding to them.” (Dec, WHO)
Blind people still get medical bills they can't read. (Dec, NPR)
Evidence brief on addressing intersectional stigma for people living with disability and chronic infectious diseases. (Oct, Disability Evidence Portal)
Promoting equity in health emergencies through health systems strengthening: “Lessons learned relating to disability inclusion in the COVID-19 pandemic can inform health systems strengthening in recovery efforts, addressing underlying barriers to access and inclusion, and in turn improving preparedness for future health emergencies.” (Oct, International Journal for Equity in Health)
Reimagining Health Systems that expect, accept and connect 1 billion people with disabilities. “People with disabilities have 2.4-fold higher mortality rates than those without disabilities and are missing 10 to 20 years of life expectancy.” (Sep, Missing Billion)
World Alzheimer Report 2022 Life after diagnosis: Navigating treatment, care and support:
“A surprising number of people living with dementia indicated they had not been offered post-diagnosis support beyond the initial information provided immediately after their diagnosis. In lower-income countries, 45% indicated they had not been offered support, while 55% reported they had. In higher-income countries, although 63% reported having been offered post-diagnosis support, 37% indicated they were offered nothing” (Sep, ADI)
WHO-ITU global standard for accessibility of telehealth services: “very
often telehealth platforms are not compatible with devices such as screen readers that
facilitate people with vision impairment to access information, or the lack of captioning
or volume control in video conferencing impedes persons who are deaf or hard of
hearing to interact with health professionals virtually”. (WHO)
A report on access and equity in the Future of Virtual Health and Care features discussion and practices of inclusion of persons with disabilities. (Jun, Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development)
A selection of videos on rehabilitation from around the world shortlisted for WHO's Health For All Film Festival (Apr, WHO)
A focus on disability is necessary to achieve HIV epidemic control:
“People with disabilities often have lower levels of access and adherence to HIV treatment due to barriers with regard to the provision of services (eg, inadequate knowledge among health-care workers and inaccessibility of facilities) and the demand for services (eg, absence of autonomy and awareness of people with disabilities of HIV care needs and service availability). ” (Apr, The Lancet HIV)
Chronically ill face life-or-death challenges due to pandemic shortages. “Millions of chronically ill people struggle to get medical supplies amid global shortages.” (Mar, Washington Post)
Disrupting Global Health: From Allyship To Collective Liberation:
“We must understand that many disabled people across the world have experienced public health and biomedicine in violent and oppressive ways; and that that history continues to resonate today. So, we must engage meaningfully with (involve them as stakeholders) disabled people’s voices, opinions, activism, and advocacy,” (Mar, Forbes)
Evidence brief on what works to improve healthcare professionals’ competency on disability: “Negative healthcare professionals’ attitudes and stigma towards people with disabilities remain a major barrier in receiving equitable healthcare services. ” (Jan, Disability Evidence Portal)
Inclusive Medicine and Medical Education: Increasing the Number of Clinicians With Disabilities "Their experiences as patients position them to provide recommendations for promoting patient-centered care and reshaping healthcare systems and delivery processes to increase accessibility and improve patient outcomes." (Feb, Global Public Health)
Lessons from Long COVID: working with patients to design better research:
"Scientific research sets the medical and care agenda for patients with chronic illnesses. It also influences the wider social and economic agenda for people living with these conditions. The more socially and economically disadvantaged people are, the greater the potential influence on their lives. This is a huge responsibility that researchers are only able to fulfil with sharp awareness of the power structures involved in conducting research, with humility and with an openness to see things from different perspectives." (Feb, Nature)
Rehabilitation
Centenary declaration from Rehabilitation International to promote “Equal Participation and Well-rounded Development of Persons with Disabilities.” Calls on the United Nations to “establish a World Disability Organization (WDO) to strengthen the coordination and advocacy for disability rights.” (Jun, Rehabilitation International)
World Health Assembly commits to boosting global access to rehabilitation. (May, the Guardian)
WHO board recommendation on Strengthening rehabilitation in health systems (Link to pdf, Jan, WHO)
Provision of rehabilitation for congenital conditions “We argue that the global health community must act to ensure that rehabilitation services to support functioning from birth are well established, accepted and integrated within health systems, and that disability is prioritized within child health.” (Nov, Bulletin World Health Organization)
The World Rehabilitation Alliance is open to membership applications. (May, WHO)
Factsheet on Rehabilitation through a gender lens (Dec, ReLAB-HS)
Food Security and Nutrition
Feeding and Disability Resource Bank “A collection of resources to address feeding difficulties and disability inclusion in nutrition programs” (Nov, USAID Advancing Nutrition)
History and Memorial
Back to contents.
Overview
Disabled people were Holocaust victims, too: they were excluded from German society and murdered by Nazi programs. (Jan, The Conversation)
A new book on Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome. (Dec, Cambridge University Press)
From the wheelchair-using Black Panther to the ‘cripple suffragette’ – 10 heroes of the disabled rights movement. (Dec, the Guardian)
Reader's Block a book on the history of reading differences. (Oct, Combined Academic Publishers)
50th Anniversary of the Independent Living Movement (Aug, ENIL)
Wheelchairs Through Time A visual history of the wheelchair: a look through thousands of years covering palanquins, tricycles, wheelbarrows, thrones, and much more. (Aug, Wayland's Workshop)
Book review of Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature (Jul, H-Disability)
State of the Field: Disability History. An overview of many strengths of a growing field, and reflections on some of the gaps, which include:
“As impressive as disability scholarship on activism is, its lack of chronological depth obscures the full range of disabled people's political actions. Most studies focus on the last one hundred years, especially the period after the emergence of the modern DRM in the 1970s. This limits our understanding of disabled people's activism by implying that their engagement in meaningful political action is a relatively recent phenomenon, concerned primarily with the fight for disability rights. Yet, disabled people have a longer and richer history of activism than this. From factory reform to women's suffrage, they have fought for many causes, often taking up prominent roles in the process.” (Jul, History)
Global Stamp Issues a book exploring postage stamps marking the United Nations International Year of Disabled People, 1981. (Jun, Digital Disability) See a write up and samples on Disability Arts Online.
Review of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History “a spell-binding book of research and stories” (May, H-Disability)
The Historians magazine: The LGBTQ+ Edition 6 has an article on Disability and LGBT History, seeking out stories that show the intersections. (Feb)
Remembering Judy Heumann
Judy Heumann Mentored the Next Generation of Disability Advocates. (May, New Mobility)
Obituary: Judy Heumann, Who Led the Fight for Disability Rights, Dies at 75 (Mar, New York Times)
Human Rights Watch Mourns Loss of Judy Heumann. (Mar, Human Rights Watch)
Judy Heumann obituary: Disability rights activist who helped shape global protocols and played a decisive role in fighting discrimination in the US. (Mar, the Guardian)
Remembering Judy Heumann tributes and memories. (Mar, Women Enabled International)
Unafraid, unbowed, and unapologetic: The life and legacy of Judy Heumann. “This is how Judy changed the world: Person by person, from the corridors of New York City’s public schools to the streets of Berkeley to the halls of power around the globe.” (Mar, Ford Foundation)
On the Debrief: Our movement is in mourning. Remembering Judy Heumann, and how she changed us. (Mar, Disability Debrief)
Disability rights activist Judy Heumann dies at 75. A rich tribute and obituary by Joseph Shapiro. (Mar, NPR)
Honoring Judy Heumann’s Legacy a tribute from Michael Ashley Stein:
‘Ultimately and thoroughly, Judy was a teacher. Completely fearless, she eagerly approached anyone at any time whenever she spied a “teachable moment.” Judy would speed up to them in her power wheelchair and insist, “Excuse me, can we talk for a minute?” What followed was invariably a polite, concise, but direct lesson on how that individual could alter their behavior to be more equitable, if not disability-empowering, in similar circumstances in the future. “Next time, when you . . .” No one was exempt from receiving her sagacious advice.’ (Mar, Harvard Law Review)
Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees
Back to contents.
Overview
Crisis response for refugee children with disability: New book published. (May, ENIL)
Profile of Aleema Shivji her work in humanitarian response and inclusion of persons with disabilities. (May, The New Humanitarian)
Free E-learning Course on Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action for Humanitarians. (May, HI)
Humanitarian emergencies and situations of risk for women and girls and gender diverse persons with disabilities. (May, Women Enabled International)
Exploring the intersectionality of International Refugee Protection and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “This paper highlights the multitude of barriers persons with disabilities experience in obtaining refugee protection.” (Feb, IDA)
Guidance note Qualitative Assessment Approaches for the Protection of Children with Disabilities Within Humanitarian Contexts. (Apr, Alliance CHPA)
Disability-Inclusive Humanitarian Action Toolkit Operational guidance on including children with disabilities in humanitarian response (UNICEF)
Key principles and recommendations for inclusive cash and voucher assistance (Feb, Calp Network)
People with Disabilities in Humanitarian Emergencies and Situations of Risk a policy submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (Feb, Human Rights Watch)
Included, Every Step of the Way Upholding the rights of migrant and displaced children with disabilities. (Feb, UNICEF)
Disability and Inclusion Survey by IOM of IDP sites in Montepuez (Jan, Relief Web)
IDA-UNHCR Strategic Collaboration in 2022: Key Steps Towards Inclusion and Participation. (Feb, IDA)
IASC Guidance, Addressing Suicide in Humanitarian Settings. (Dec, IASC)
A review of evidence on disability inclusive Early Childhood Development and Education in Humanitarian Settings. (Jan, Institute of Development Studies)
Disability and Older Age Inclusion in Humanitarian Action: Innovation Catalogue. See also notes on its launching. (Dec, elrha)
Advancing disability-inclusive action on internal displacement. “This report represents a first step toward addressing the paucity of data on IDPs with disabilities.” (Dec, IDMC)
Discussion on inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian affairs with Ricardo Pla of UNHCHR, on Ukraine and beyond. (In Spanish, Oct, En Marcha)
Disabled refugee students included and visible in education. Case studies of challenges and opportunities in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. (Sep, Disabled Refugees Included)
Training Package on Strengthening Protection of Persons with Disabilities in Forced Displacement (UNHCR)
A scoping review of research on adolescents with disabilities’ experiences of COVID-19 and other humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries. (Sep, Global Health Action)
Around the world, refugees with disabilities face an uphill battle (Aug, Equal Times)
All Under One Roof: disability-inclusive shelter and settlements in emergencies. Technical guidance for inclusion to improve on how “post disaster shelter and settlement responses are invariably designed to provide standardised solutions to an affected community”. (May, Global Shelter Cluster)
Under the Radar: Surviving Wars With a Disability:
“I was like a double-burden to my mom. The pressure was so much that one day, she decided to get rid of me.” She threw him into a shallow body of water and was ready to move on. But Mauot’s sisters refused to leave him behind. They picked him up as he cried, until their mother relented.” (Jul, Pass Blue)
Inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian action: findings from a three-year study. A call to treat inclusion more holistically. Important reflections on a ”fragmentation of approaches”, and how it creates a siloed approach:
“In many cases, inclusion is still understood in categorical terms, focusing on specific groups of people or categories of need, such as gender, people with disabilities, people with diverse SOGIESC, religious and ethnic minorities, and beyond. This has a number of implications for how inclusion is operationalised in practice. First, seeing inclusion largely as a proliferation of different categories all requiring their own specific approaches has led to a sense of being overwhelmed and being asked to do too many things at once [... Also] it can have the unintended effect of creating hierarchies between different marginalised or vulnerable groups in terms of what or who gets prioritised. [.. . ] Breaking things down into categories can reduce inclusion to a question of ‘marketability’ in terms of what gets funded, with ‘women and girls’ competing with ‘older people’ [...] Absent altogether from these hierarchies are axes of inclusion that do not fall neatly into categories because they are not always identity-based or easily visible – such as race, social class or stigmatised occupations. In general, these aspects tend to lack the same kinds of communities of expertise and advocacy that have forcefully pushed for greater sensitivity to other aspects of inclusion over the years at both the global and response levels.” (Jul, ODI)
UNHCR 2021 report on Age, Gender and Diversity Accountability “2021 marked an important turning point in UNHCR’s work
on persons with disabilities.”:
“Enhanced reporting by operations allowed UNHCR to better capture the support provided to persons with disabilities. Cumulatively, UNHCR operations supported 479,815 persons with disabilities worldwide, including at least 7,615 children.” (Jun, UNHCR)
People with disabilities face 10-40% higher costs does Cash and Voucher Assistance account for this? “The way transfer values are calculated for people with disabilities must change” (May, Calp Network)
More disasters, less inclusion: will transformation start in Bali? Calls from IDA for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to empower persons with disabilities. (May, PR Web)
IDMC 2022 Global Report on Internal Displacement includes a spotlight on displaced children with disabilities and promising practices. (May)
Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week Resources about Inclusion (May, HNPW)
Report on the role of Cash and Voucher Assistance in Increasing Equity and Inclusion for Girls and Children with Disabilities in Education in Emergencies. Report speaks to how this assistance “primarily addresses” the demand-side barriers to education in emergencies. (SDC and others)
UNHCR's Approach to Forcibly Displaced and Stateless Persons with Disabilities. Most of this brief describes the organization's approach to disability inclusion in general. (UNHCR)
Introductory video to the IASC Guidelines on inclusive humanitarian has been translated into Arabic, Bangla, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian and Russian. (Apr, EDF)
CBM's Humanitarian Hands on Tool is now available in more languages including Ukrainian. (CBM)
International Rescue Committee UK: Step by step – our work to become inclusive. (Feb, EDF)
"No One is Spared" Report on Older People at Heightened Risk in Conflict. Including disturbing examples of violence. (Feb, Human Rights Watch)
Give people with disabilities better protection in conflict and crises (Feb, The New Humanitarian)
December Newsletter from the Reference Group on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action (Dec, IDA)
An overall view on Aid policy trends to watch in 2022 Diversifying aid, its staff and its workplaces are one of the key themes to explore this year. The article puts this under the "decolonisation agenda" but there are many examples where genuine gains in diversity and inclusion are made without touching colonial dynamics. (Jan, The New Humanitarian)
Perhaps familiar to some of you, but this month I learned that physical rehabilitation centres are one of the ways that humanitarian impact bonds are being used. The idea of the impact bond is that you pay for results and they might be a means to secure different sources of funding. (Government Outcomes Lab)
Good to see these six reflections on Cash and Voucher Assistance in 2021 that shows the place of disability-inclusive cash assistance in a "patchy" shift to putting people at the centre of work. (Dec, CALP Network)
Migration
Empowering Disabled Refugees: Mustafa Rifat's experiences navigating the refugee resettlement process as a disabled refugee, and his concrete recommendations for resettlement agencies, disability services organizations, (Mar, Down to the Struts)
A Scoping Review of Needs and Barriers to Achieving A Livable Life among Refugees with Disabilities: Implications for Future Research, Practice, and Policy. (Dec, Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work)
Crossing the Border: How Disability Civil Rights Protections are “powerful tools for ensuring that disabled asylum-seekers have access to the protection and services they need in the U.S. immigration system.” (Aug, American Progress)
Migration data portal: Disability and human mobility (Feb, Migration Data Portal)
Data on disability and migration – what do we know? estimates of 12 million displaced persons around the world being disabled, and emerging practices on data. (Feb, Data 4 SDGs)
Disability-inclusive data in migration: How far have we come? (Jan, Migration Data Portal)
Indigenous People and Minority Communities
Back to contents.
Intersectionality is a Practice: Inclusive Funding Must Resource Disability and Indigenous Rights. (Oct, Cultural Survival)
Disability Studies Quarterly special edition on indigeneity and disability: Kinship, Place, and Knowledge-Making (Jan)
Institutions and Deinstitutionalization
Back to contents.
Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization commentary and an explanatory video. (Jan, IDA)
Feeding practices of children within institution-based care: A retrospective analysis of surveillance data. “Feeding difficulties are common among children living in institution-based care (IBC), particularly but not exclusively among those children with disabilities.” (Mar, Maternal & Child Nutrition)
International Cooperation
Back to contents.
Overview
Re-thinking disability inclusion for the SDGs (Jun, UNDP)
Debrief Feature: Do we practice what we preach? The discrimination we face while advocating on disability
(May, Disability Debrief)
From Crises to Solutions: Disability Rights Fund 2022 annual report on Building Diverse Movements for Inclusion (May, DRF)
World Food Programme Disability Inclusion Helpdesk: a learning brief on its contributions to mainstreaming disability within the organization. (Apr, CBM Global)
G20 process gets separate group to mainstream persons with disabilities within civil society engagement: Disability, Equity and Justice. (Apr, Times of India)
Dialogue of the Special Rapporteurs: a conversation between Catalina Devandas and Gerard Quinn. (Apr, Gerard Quinn)
How can building collaborative alliances support disability inclusion? (Mar, Inclusive Futures)
A guide to building successful partnerships between INGOs and disability organisations. (Jan, Inclusive Futures)
CBM Global’s Power Shift Journey: “The diversity of views received were not always easy to reconcile or harmonise – a fair reflection of the diversity of the disability movement.” (Feb, CBM Global)
Inclusive Participation Toolbox Supports Disability Inclusive Planning. (Nov, CBM)
The Zero Project 2023 celebrated. See the session recordings and this year's awardees. (Feb, Zero Project)
UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) 2022-2030. Commitments to increase resourcing, employment and more. (Feb, UNICEF) See also coverage on the Lancet.
Discussion on increasing the engagement between disabled people's organizations and the United Nations (Feb, Center for Inclusive Policy)
It is time for a radical rethink on how we distribute funding in the disability rights movement. (Jan, Bond)
Gerard Quinn interviews Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, discussing the World Bank & disability inclusion. (Dec, Gerard Quinn)
The third report on Disability Inclusion in the United Nations system reviews work done in 2021:
“As we move into the fourth year of the Strategy’s implementation, it is clear that staff at all levels, supported by their leadership, are taking action to advance disability inclusion across programmes and operations. While findings demonstrate that significant progress has been made since 2019, a majority of benchmarks set by the Strategy to achieve the transformative change on disability inclusion are still not being met.” (Dec, UN)
A podcast discussion with Gopal Mitra on the the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy. (Nov, Gerard Quinn)
Situation Analyses of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Lessons and Conclusions from Twenty-Six Countries. (Dec, UNPRPD)
Evaluation of Ford's Disability Inclusion Initiative “Since 2018, we have invested more than $70 million toward projects and organizations focused on disability and an additional $250 million to social justice organizations including disability within their broader work.” See also the lessons for other grant makers. (Ford Foundation)
Communique from the GLAD Network 2022 Annual General Meeting. (Nov, GLAD)
Data Quick Guide Towards Disability Inclusive Programme Monitoring (Oct, DCDD)
Inclusion of persons with disabilities in project planning a short guide. (Link to pdf, Oct, GIZ)
An evaluation of CBM Australia's Inclusion Advisory Group dedicated to advising partner organizations on disability inclusion, and an important model of how capacity on disability inclusion might be provided. (May, CBM Australia)
Disability Rights Funds welcomes Catalina Devandas as Executive Director. (Jul, DRF) Cata was the first person I interviewed on the Debrief to reflect on her years as Special Rapporteur on Disability.
Organizations of Persons with Disabilities Engagement Officer as a medium to strengthening the disability movement (Jul, IDA)
An interview with USAID employee (and friend of the newsletter, Josh Josa) who talking about his background and inclusive education (Jul, Government Matters)
A scoping review on Community Support for Persons with Disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. (Jul, Environmental Research and Public Health)
Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities for Sustainable Development Position Paper for the High-Level Political Forum “governments must redouble their efforts to reach the most marginalized and furthest behind to implement policies and programs to address the discrimination and disadvantage faced by persons with disabilities. ” (link to pdf, Jul, Stakeholder Group)
The pursuit of authentic partnership: personal reflections from the executive director of CBM Global on the difference between partnership and imposition. (Feb, CBM Global)
Reflections on how racism in the aid sector relates to persons with disabilities and measures that can be taken to localize work on disability: “Any capacity-building programme should be locally and culturally designed and managed by a local CSO/DPO on its premises to build a disability movement locally. ” (Jun, Mosharraf Hossein)
Pocket guide to safeguarding persons with disabilities and/or mental health conditions in programming. See also for safeguarding in workplaces doing humanitarian and development work. (May, RSH)
Evidence digest on youth and disability inclusion (Jun, SD Direct)
The UNPRPD Annual Narrative and Financial Report 2021 (link to pdf, Jun, UNPRPD)
Lessons from our partnerships with local organisations of persons with disabilities. Featuring CBM Global's experiences and reactions from partners. “You are supporting with resources. We are getting job done. We should be paid in the same way, with same remuneration – that’s what equal partnership is!” (May, Bond)
UN Women experience with Disability Inclusion Markers. (Jan, UN Women)
In-depth conversation with World Bank Global Disability Advisor Charlotte Vuyiswa McClain-Nhlapo. “It is clear to me that my early exposure to racism and inequality influenced my life’s work for social justice and equality for all.” (Apr, Allfie)
Tracking disability inclusion in multilateral organizations a report tracking how inclusion changed between 2018 and 2022. “Although this report finds certain progress regarding the monitoring of disability inclusion since the first Global Disability Summit, particularly on strategies and commitments, the findings discuss how the step from ambitions to documentation of successful disability inclusion continues to be limited.” (Mar, Fafo)
LFTW Fact Sheet on Intersectionality Unveiling intersecting discrimination (Mar, LFTW)
Working towards a more inclusive society: Five stories of how the UN is working with partners to advance disability inclusion. (Feb, UNSDG)
The High Level Political Forum will be in July: see the position paper on how it relates to disability and more from the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities. (IDA)
A new issue of Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development featuring a lively editorial on the need for local solutions. (Feb, DCIDJ)
Discussion on how development partners can ensure engagement of organizations of persons with disabilities in CIP's question of the month. (Feb, CIP)
Celebrating MIUSA's Story | Mobility International USA "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. They are where they should be. Now put foundations under them. " (MIUSA)
Intersectionality Resource Guide and Toolkit An Intersectional Approach to Leave No One Behind
'This does not require an “add and stir” approach, but rather a full shift in mindset—one that is willing to sit with the discomfort that comes with exploring the relational nature of power and discrimination both within and beyond UN systems.' (Jan, UN Women)
A survey on the situation of persons with deafblindness (2022) (up to 14th Feb, WFDB)
World Federation of the Deaf review of 2021. (WFD)
Innovation to Inclusion Learning Update (link to pdf, Jan, Leonard Cheshire)
See the CIP question of the month on How civil society can work with large development partners and financial institutions to address disability inclusion. Hosted by the World Bank's lead on disability. (Jan)
Light for the World 2021: The year in review (Dec, LFTW)
Reflecting a Movement’s Principles in Grantmaking Structure Evidence on the Benefits of Participation (Dec, DRF)
See You Strategic Framework 2021-2024 Light for the World Netherlands is now See You: 'We see our values reflected in the Bible, as well as represented in the UNCRPD' (link to pdf, Nov, See You)
Global Disability Summit
Words are not enough “One year on from the Global Disability Summit 2022, we urgently call on global governments to uphold disability rights and make their summit commitments a reality” (Sightsavers)
Global Disability Summit 2022 Report (Oct, IDA)
Series of videos featuring youth with disabilities. (Mar, IDA)
Will the 2022 Global Disability Summit result in a more equal world? As well highlighting the achievements of the summit, a concern raised that "overall, there aren’t enough commitments with concrete financing attached. " (Mar, Sightsavers)
Preceding the Summit was the GDS Youth Summit 2022 which launched a call for action for organizations and youth with disabilities to commit to.
The Global Disability Summit closed. See the co-chair summary. Watch recordings from both days or browse the portal of commitments made. The Summit reiterated the 2018 charter for change.
Upcoming disability summit must be a turning point, position from President of Ghana, PM of Norway, chief of WHO, and president of the International Disability Alliance. (Feb, BMJ)
The next summit will be hosted by Jordan and Germany scheduled for Berlin, 2025.
An Accessible Future for Persons with Disabilities a beautiful multimedia feature on the World Bank's work on disability around the world, and their commitments for the summit. (Feb, World Bank)
Guterres opens Global Disability Summit with inclusivity call. Strange to see 'handicap' used in this article. (Feb, UN)
Discussion Paper on engagement of organizations of persons with disabilities: "OPDs are more consulted than before,
levels of participation remain insufficient." The paper explores the gaps as well as good practices, particularly around investment in supporting representative organizations.
"While progress [on disability inclusion] is significant, it takes a lot more effort to turn these promises into action, and initiatives often fail to engage and consult with persons with disabilities themselves. Reasons vary but usually relate to gaps in understanding disability from a rights-based perspective or prejudice regarding OPDs’ capacity to contribute, limited knowledge of and contacts with OPDs, gaps in ensuring inclusive and accessible venues, information and methods to support active engagement of OPDs. This significantly reduces the relevance and impact of disability-inclusive investments and perpetuates paternalistic approaches whereby persons with disabilities are only recipients of aid. The Covid-19 global pandemic brutally recalled and exposed pervasive discriminations, with dramatic consequences as lives of persons with disabilities are not considered of equal importance. " (Feb, IDA)
Global Disability Summit 2022: another talkshop? Raises concerns, referring to concrete examples, about initiatives for disability inclusion "without the direct involvement of disabled people". Organizations working on disability rights "are yet to recognize the power of lived-experience and professional representation within their leadership ranks and thus continue making decisions around disability rights issues without the participation of disabled people". (Feb, Fred Ouko)
Sightsavers’ campaign petition for the Global Disability Summit hits 30,000 signatures from 111 countries. (Feb, Sightsavers)
Four priorities in inclusive education for the Global Disability Summit 2022 Collection of evidence in each priority. (Jan, Cambridge)
3 things to expect from the Global Disability Summit "The answers are there already – use them!" - agree with the sentiment that we have under-used solutions, but disagree we know "what it takes to implement the CRPD". (Feb, LFTW)
Recommendations from the Thematic Workshop on Inclusive Education (Jan, Global Disability Summit)
Ensure disability inclusion is not just a tick mark (Jan, Humanity and Inclusion)
International Summit On Disability And Health Aims To Achieve #HealthForAll (Jan, Health Policy Watch)
You can follow the GDS on social media and with its social media toolkit. Hashtags will be #CommitToChange and #GDS2022. Suggested prompt is “I believe in a disability-inclusive future because…” (Jan, Global Disability Summit)
Get ready for the Global Disability Summit The main events are 14-17th Feb, with the youth summit followed by the civil society forum and then the summit itself.
Plenty of events on the way into this as well: see the event guide. covering the thematic, regional and side events.
See also the master guide (Global Disability Summit)
On Humanitarian response, a call for commitments to disability inclusion (Jan, Global Disability Summit)
Community Based Inclusive Development
Greece makes nearly 200 beaches accessible with Seatrac chairs - The Washington Post (May, Washington Post)
A report on CBM's work on Community Based Inclusive Development (Jun, CBM)
Justice Systems and Legal Capacity
Back to contents.
A review on corruption and the equal enjoyment of rights for persons with disabilities:
“People with disabilities are exposed to abuse by those that provide care, the embezzlement of funds intended to benefit persons with disabilities and extortion in the process of acquiring a disability certificate. [...] This impact of this corruption is caused, enabled or exacerbated by discrimination against persons with disabilities.“ (Apr, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre)
Evidence brief on promoting effective implementation of legal capacity as outlined in Article 12 of the UN CRPD in LMICs. "Reforms for legal capacity do not engage a wide variety of stakeholders, and instead tend to reinforce existing powers structures" (Jan, Disability Evidence Portal)
Lived Experience and Opinion
Back to contents.
Yes, Disabled People Can Be Parents stories from disabled parents. (Feb, Women Enabled International)
Disability and Technology? No, Disability as Technology. "My argument is, rather, that technology is a constitutive mechanism of disability, that is, disability is a fully-fledged technology (artifact) itself, a complex and complicated apparatus of power, a composite of technologies and other artifacts." (Jan, Biopolitical Philosophy)
An issue of the Massachusetts Review dedicated to Disability Justice (Dec, Massachusetts Review)
Living Inclusion a campaign featuring the voices and lives of persons with disabilities in the global south. (GIZ)
The Valuable 500 reflects on What Disability Pride means to us. (Jul)
From the Debrief's own Áine Kelly-Costello: Social Role Valorisation: What is it, and what’s the problem? “When people hold roles that are valued by others, they will become more valued as individuals”. Unfortunately this can have the side-effect of ”perpetuating the devalued status of disability and disabled people” by focussing on individual conformity. (Jun, A Frame on Life)
Disability Pride Month July “looks to celebrate disability as an identity by sharing the experiences of the disabled community” (Jul, Forbes)
How a Cyborg Challenges Reality “It seems obvious that cyborgs are first and foremost disabled people, and yet I’m stuck inside this other reality, defined by nondisabled people, where I make an appeal for personhood.” (Jun, NYT)
‘I’m a TV producer’s dream!’ – Rosie Jones on the trouble with being the poster girl for disabled comedy:
“sometimes think I am the ‘perfect amount of disabled’. I am being facetious but hear me out. I look disabled and I sound disabled, but I am not too disabled. I can appear on a panel show without disrupting the whole programme. There’s no need for subtitles, ramps or additional needs. I’m a TV producer’s dream!” (Mar, the Guardian)
Satirical take on Five Ways to Accommodate Sighties in the Workplace “Turn on the lights. You know this.” (Mar, Squeaky Wheel)
Jane Waithera′s fight against the stigma of albinism (short video, no subtitles, Feb, DW)
A powerful tribute to her body from Frances Ryan: Living in a woman’s body: this body is a genetic mistake – but it is sex, laughter and beauty too.
"This body is a genetic mistake, a pitiable stare, the scan on a mundane Tuesday lunchtime with a doctor speaking in hushed tones by the bed.
It is glorious too, thanks. It is deep-in-the-bones laughter at 2am with people who love you; only strangers care that it is sitting in a wheelchair while doing so (“Have you got a licence for that thing, sweetheart?”). It is straight-As, promotions and beating expectations as much as the odds. It is being buckled over from the pain, clutching a public toilet bowl, pills and dignity rattling at the bottom of a handbag. It is sex, fevered goosebumps and kisses to the skin like magic. It is warm summers with friends, sunshine on bare legs and 90s dance music ricocheting through the air. It is fucking knackered." (Feb, the Guardian)
Define Yourself: Riva Lehrer’s and Jan Grue’s Disability Memoirs (Jan, LA Review of Books)
Mental Health
Back to contents.
Reprioritising global mental health: psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa. “Our findings point to the need not only for more research on psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa, but also for more representation and leadership in the conduct of research and in international priority-setting more broadly—especially by people with lived experience from diverse backgrounds.” (Mar, International Journal of Mental Health Systems.)
The Drawbacks and Downsides of Online Therapy
“In the past year, a flurry of reports have found that some of the most recognizable names in the industry have repeatedly engaged in creepy and harmful data-sharing practices that treat people in need of help as prospective sources of profit instead of as patients. Taken together, the reports reveal a dangerous cocktail of tech solutionism, abuse of consumer trust, and regulatory failure that puts highly vulnerable people at risk.” (Apr, Business Insider)
BasicNeeds Network Launch: bringing together 100+ years of mental health implementation experience. (Jan, CBM UK)
The future of mental health care might lie beyond psychiatry: “Poor countries are developing a new paradigm of mental health care.” (Nov, Vox)
Controversy erupts over non-consensual AI mental health experiment. “Koko let 4,000 people get therapeutic help from GPT-3 without telling them first.” (Jan, Ars Technica)
The Virtual Asylum Replacing Mental Healthcare (Dec, Tech Policy Press)
Anxiety and Depression Signs Among Adolescents in 26 Low- and Middle-Income Countries: “Compared to adolescents without functional difficulties, those with difficulties in one or more domains were three times more likely to have signs of depression and anxiety.” (Jan, Journal of Adolescent Health)
Mental Health Apps Are Not Keeping Your Data Safe “With little regulation and sometimes outright deception, the possibility of discrimination and other “data harms” is high” (Nov, Scientific American)
The story of depression and how we treat it a review of A Cure for Darkness, a new book which “takes a more global and socioeconomically inclusive approach to studying depression”. (Sep, Africa is a Country)
Launch of the report of the Lancet Commission On Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. (Oct, United for Global Mental Health)
Guidelines on mental health at work: “evidence-based recommendations to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions, and enable people living with mental health conditions to participate and thrive in work.” (Sep, WHO)
WHO World Mental Health Report “Stigma, discrimination and human rights violations against people with mental health conditions are widespread in communities and care systems everywhere. And in all countries, it is the poorest and most
disadvantaged in society who are at greater risk of mental ill-health and who are also the least likely to receive adequate services.” (Jun, WHO)
Mental Health Apps Like BetterHelp Are a Privacy Nightmare, Mozilla Says. (May, Gizmodo)
Hope, empowerment, action: a new series dedicated to suicide prevention:
“To begin with, we need to abandon the myth that every suicide is the outcome of 'mental illness'. And we must reckon with the deep socioeconomic factors that make suicide one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.” (May, Sanity by Tanmoy)
A briefing on Financing Mental Health For All as part of universal healthcare: “the opportunity for once-in-a-generation change”. (Mar, United for Global Mental Health)
COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide (March, WHO)
Entry points for mental health and wellbeing a brief on how international cooperation can incorporate mental health. (Feb, Bond)
Mental health support for children and adolescents with hearing loss scoping review (Jan, BJPsych)
Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism
Back to contents.
Overview
10 Most Accessible Cities features some big capitals including some cities I did not think of as very accessible. (link to pdf, Nov, Valuable 500)
Global Trends Report on Making Travel Inclusive for All (link to pdf, Oct, Valuable 500)
‘It’s not the waiting, it’s the indignity’: disabled passengers tell of air travel torment. (Jun, the Guardian)
Fostering an inclusive urban transport system. Survey on inclusion from 20 public-transport operators around the world. They found that there were initiatives for inclusion but they were usually not integrated. (Feb, McKinsey)
Experts at Dubai summit seek better travel facilities and accessibility for 'people of determination' worldwide (Jan, Gulf News)
Air Travel
First Look: Air4All Wheelchair Securement Space by Delta Flight Products. Preview of a model where wheelchairs ride in body of the plane. (Jun, Wheelchair Travel)
Delta Developing First-of-Its-Kind Airplane Seat for Wheelchair Users. (Jun)
Why Accessibility is Essential for Air Travel efforts to “move the priority of accessible air travel” and their inclusion in the latest Airport Handling Manual. (Mar, IATA)
New bill aims to improve transparency around disability-related air travel complaints. (Feb, Changing America)
How airline Apps let down blind passengers “Only one major UK airline’s App works with screenreaders for the blind” (May, Which)
Policy and Rights
Back to contents.
Progress on disability rights risks going in reverse. Remarks from António Guterres. “We must do much, much better,” (Jun, UN)
Will disabled people be accounted for in the UN process for a crimes against humanity treaty? (May, Just Security)
Compilation of CRPD Closing Observations by each article of the convention. (Apr, IDA, Dropbox)
Global Report on Deafblindness: Good Practices and Recommendations for the Inclusion of Persons with Deafblindness (Apr, WFDB)
Youth lead anti-corruption talks on disability (Jan, EDYN)
Transformation of services for persons with disabilities. “New technologies and participation allow us to imagine support services of persons with disabilities beyond traditional models based on impairment and dependency. This report offers a framework to rethink these services with personhood, autonomy and human rights at their center.” (Jan, Gerard Quinn) Also on OHCHR.
Life for Israelis with disabilities is a well-kept secret “For-profit institutions and government neglect have led to brutal abuse and exploitation.” Explored in the context of immigration laws that allow for recognition of disability before migration. (Jan, Jewish News Syndicate)
World Report 2023 makes many references to disability in each of the country profiles and provides a mixed but optimistic view on a “new international embrace of human rights”:
“The magnitude, scale, and frequency of human rights crises across the globe show the urgency of a new framing and new model for action. Viewing our greatest challenges and threats to the modern world through a human rights lens reveals not only the root causes of disruption but also offers guidance to address them.” (Jan, Human Rights Watch)
A lively discussion on the most under-researched topic when it comes to inclusive policies? (Dec, Center for Inclusive Policy)
How Human Rights Defenders with disabilities are targeted & excluded globally. See the video testimonies. (Nov, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders)
Restoring the personhood of persons with disabilities short intervention on how “the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities is allowing those who were assumed to be hidden permanently from the world to have their moral agency both respected and restored.” See also further remarks on disability and the struggle for personhood. (Nov, Gerard Quinn, Special Rapporteur)
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had its twenty-seventh session reviewing reports from Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Macau Special Administrative Region of China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Singapore. See also documentation from the meetings. (Aug, OHCHR)
CIP Discussion on how development partners influence governments in taking ownership of disability inclusion? (Jul, CIP)
Disability rights: How ‘nothing about us without us’ powered a global treaty. A vital, wide-ranging conversation exploring development of the Convention and onwards onto tensions today, with focus on legal capacity, mental health and psycho-social disabilities:
“The medical model that the disability community abandoned is still very prevalent for persons with psychosocial disabilities. It’s very hard to do advocacy that is not framed through mental health lens. [...] When people talk about your rights, (they) think we need to ensure access to mental health services and quality support, but nobody’s talking about my right to employment, my right to education. [...] The mental health system works as a gatekeeper. If I want to access a social benefit, I actually have to go to see a psychiatrist that will say that I have a disability and depending on the country, he may say, actually, this person doesn’t take medication; he may need to be assessed to see if he has the capacity to decide not to take medication. [...] You have a system ready to take away your rights.” (Jul, Strength and Solidarity)
CIP Question of the month is on the gap between policy and practice in disability rights in low and middle-income countries, and what can be done to close it. (Jun, CIP)
Face Equality is a Human Right:
“Historically, legal recognition of disfigurement has been limited to disability laws and spaces. But is facial difference always classed as a disability? While it is true that there is often an overlap between the two characteristics, many members of the facial difference community indicate that facial difference is an identity in itself.” (link to pdf, May, Face Equality International)
We cannot keep leaving women with disabilities behind in leadership (May, African Arguments)
Open letter to the UN to protect gender parity and diversity of representation on the committee on the rights of persons with disabilities. (Sightsavers and 80 other signatories)
Why tax justice is critical to the rights of persons with disabilities. Injustices that persons with disabilities face “cannot be properly tackled without dedicated public resources. ” (Apr, CESR)
Taxes, Budgets, and Human Rights: Part of a series on key concepts in human rights and the economy:
‘the use of public resources can help to tackle centuries of exclusion towards certain groups (like women, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ communities, and more) who have been systematically denied their rights. In fact, any group fighting for social justice is going to face, at some point, the question of “how to pay” to fix the problem.’ (Apr, CESR)
Report on disability legislation and how it works for people with Facial Disfigurements “While the UNCRPD provides a strong theoretical foundation for protecting the rights of people with facial disfigurements through its wide definition of disability, in reality, it has had more limited practical success, owing to the limited accountability measures in place” (link to pdf, May, Face Equality)
Unchaining Disability Law Global Considerations, Limitations and Possibilities in the Global South and East:
‘Over the past years, there have been increased legal measures to protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities. Yet there has been significantly less action in relation to direct prosecution, despite mounting global pressure from disability rights advocates. The majority of persons with disabilities continue to live on the margins of, and often outside, the law, as the law offers them little or no protection because of deep stigmatization, inequality, and marginality. Institutions designed to protect persons with disabilities in countries positioned on the “global peripheries of law” are “places in the world where it is particularly difficult to realize human rights in practice.”’ (Mar, AJIL Unbound)
The proposal for a United Nations Convention on Tax aims to ensure that tax systems support realization of goals relating to equality, including the rights of persons with disabilities, and that States report on this. (Mar, Eurodad)
CRPD Committee Twenty-Sixth Session considered State reports of Hungary, Jamaica, Mexico,Switzerland and Venezuela. (Mar, OHCHR)
5 types of discriminatory laws that punish you for having leprosy (Jan, Leprosy Mission)
A paper exploring how Fiscal policy needs a focus on disability: how to make this possible? (in Spanish, Feb, Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy)
Human Rights Watch World Report 2022 starts with a discussion of autocrats "on the defensive" and how democracies can "rise to the ocassion"; from there it is an update on human rights by country, including updates on disability rights. (Jan, Human Rights Watch)
A training course The Human Rights-Based Approach to Disability running in February-March (UNITAR)
The 15th session of the Conference of States Parties to the CRPD is scheduled in New York from 14th to 16h June (UN)
Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights
Back to contents.
Disability & Sexual Violence: Women with disabilities’ global struggle for their right to intimacy (Apr, HPOD)
The Right to Marry: Barriers to intimacy for persons with disabilities. (Mar, HPOD)
A quick guide towards Disability Inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights (DCDD)
Evidence Digest on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. (Nov, SDD Direct)
Be inclusive: sexual and reproductive health. (Inclusive Futures)
A campaign to end forced sterilisation of persons with disabilities in the European Union:
“The study of EU Member States’ legislation on sterilisation shows
widespread forced sterilisation of persons with disabilities, especially
women and girls. Forced sterilisation is authorised by the legislation of 14 EU Member States (even though the expression of “forced” is not expressly present in the legislation except for Hungary and Lithuania). The legislation of Czechia, Hungary and Portugal allows forced sterilisation of minors.” (link to pdf, Sep, EDF)
Some experiences of sex workers with disabilities who find opportunities in their work. (Jul, URevolution)
An evidence digest on LGBTIQ+ and disability inclusion (Jun, Social Development Direct)
Evidence brief on promoting the sexual health of men and women with physical disabilities in low- and middle- income countries. (Dec, Disability Evidence Portal)
Between Vulnerability and Sexual Agency recent history discussion in the US and UK contexts. (Feb, History Workshop)
Resources
Back to contents.
Draft Guide to Publicly Available Influencing Toolkits a blog post collecting guides on influencing. (Not disability related, but maybe relevant for some of you.) (Feb, FP2P)
A great weekly newsletter Crip News with weekly updates on arts, culture and politics. Largely US/UK.
A podcast Road to Inclusion covering many themes relating to the Global Disability Summit. (link to youtube, also available on Spotify and other platforms, Jan, Atlas Alliance)
Space Exploration
Back to contents.
Alt text proved unexpected star of NASA’s Webb images:
“The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion,” reads one. “Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is bluish, and has wispy translucent cloudlike streaks rising from the nebula below.” (Jul, Washington Post)
How AstroAccess Plans to Extend Accessibility in Space. Good to see in this piece that NASA experiments in the area of disability and space exploration date back to the 1960s with a study on motion sickness as experienced by deaf men. (Jun, Payload)
The Right Stuff a great episode exploring the ways we imagine space, space travel, and what that means for life back on Earth. (Mar, Radiolab)
Sport and Paralympics
Back to contents.
On the Debrief: Games of inclusion or exclusion? reflecting on the gap between disability rights and the Paralympic Games. (Jun, Disability Debrief)
Debrief view: How would you like to be called that? reflection on the Paralympics Committee social media. (May, Disability Debrief)
Double amputee Everest climber “An Army veteran who lost both his legs in Afghanistan has reached the top of Mount Everest in an attempt to make mountaineering history.” (May, AP)
Paralympics in crisis as international and Australian athletes game the system. “Insiders described a culture where classification rules were regularly bent and broken, with few repercussions for those prepared to exploit a weak system.” (Apr, ABC News)
Dementia and Football: a taboo in the most popular sport in the world. (In Spanish, Jan, Yo También.)
The first Olympiad for People with Disabilities: A milestone for chess. (Jan, ChessBase)
What to look forward to in the Paralympic Movement in 2023 (Jan, International Paralympic Committee)
What should the future of para sport look like at the Commonwealth Games? (Aug, ABC News)
Special Olympics Unified with Refugees brings inclusion to the world's most marginalized (Apr, Fansided)
A blog on Inclusion through sport and sports programmes that have promoted this. (Mar, LFTW)
Stop Calling Paralympic and Disabled Athletes “Inspiring”. (Mar, Bitch Media)
Book review of More Than Medals A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan. (Mar, H-Disability)
As an Afghan Paralympian, sport gave me opportunities all disabled people deserve (Mar, the Guardian)
See highlights and results of the Paralympic Winter Games held in Beijing between 4th and 13th March. (Mar, Paralympic)
Paralympic Classifications Are Meant To Level The Playing Field. Do They? Detailed breakdown of classification systems and results. (Mar, Five Thirty Eight)
Special Olympics Calls Off World Winter Games In Russia (Mar, Disability Scoop)
Opening ceremony of the Paralympics started with a speech calling for peace (4 Mar, Youtube, Channel 4 Sport)
IPC makes decisions regarding RPC and NPC Belarus. Decision for athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate as neutrals. And "The Paralympic Honour bestowed to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has been withdrawn." (2 Mar, IPC) Athletes of Ukraine criticised the IPC for not taking a strong enough stance, “choosing bloodshed and profits over principle and stakeholders”. See also video of their appeal, (28 Feb).
The Para Equestrian Digest a new monthly digest "building inclusion, one story at a time" (Feb, FEI)
Channel 4 presenting team for Winter Paralympics will all be disabled people (Feb, the Guardian)
Violence and Harassment
Back to contents.
Global estimates of violence against children with disabilities: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. “This review shows that children with disabilities experience a high burden of all forms of violence, despite advances in awareness and policy in the past 10 years.” (Mar, Lancet Child & Adolescent Health) See also coverage on Disability Insider: “1 in 3 children with disabilities globally have experienced violence in their lifetimes”. And on NPR.
Report on Harmful practices and hate crimes targeting persons with albinism. in a statement on the report, the Special Rapporteur said:
“For many persons with albinism, this is what their day-to-day realities entail – experiences of ostracism, rejection and the debilitating fear of being abducted or attacked on their way to school, work or home.” (Mar, OHCHR)
Rising Flame's From the Shadows to the Centre important collection of testimonies from women with disabilities. (link to pdf, Feb, Rising Flame)
The 1st of March is Disability Day of Mourning remembering people with disabilities who were victims of filicide (killed by their parents).
'When we say “filicide,” we are talking about a pattern of violence that starts when a parent or caregiver murders their child or adult relative with a disability and continues in how these murders are reported, discussed, justified, excused, and replicated.' (March, Disability Memorial)
War in Ukraine
Back to contents.
Overview
Easy-read magazine edition Europe for us Everything created was destroyed. (Link to pdf, Feb, Inclusion Europe)
Evacuating or Leaving Ukraine
A note on priorities for Ensuring the protection of persons with disabilities fleeing from Ukraine (Dec, UNHCR)
Situation in Ukraine
Perils of War for Children in Institutions. “Russia Should End Deportations; Kyiv, Allies Should Support Families” (Mar, Human Rights Watch)
Harder than ever: How power outages affect people with disabilities in Ukraine. (Jan, Kyiv Independent)
Attacks on disabled people and facilities
Visually impaired people in Ukraine struggle to cope during Russian missile attacks (Jun, WDIO.com)
Response
Rebuilding a society for all ages in Ukraine “Reforming long-term care and support, healthcare and pensions and building inclusive infrastructure, are critical priorities to address as Ukraine rebuilds and aligns itself with EU norms and standards.” (Jun, HelpAge International)
Fighting for Disability Rights Amid Russian War. Profile of Tanya Herasymova. “We helped more than 14,000 people in the last year,” Tanya says, “and we’ve got one more thousand waiting for help.” (May, Byline Times)
Immediate needs and an inclusive future: Persons with disabilities in Ukraine need more support. (Mar, EDF)
The monitoring of the accessibility of pre-fab camps for people with disabilities (Feb, League of the Strong)
Water and Sanitation (WASH)
Back to contents.
Taking action to achieve inclusive WASH an introductory online course exploring disability-inclusive WASH. (WaterAid / UNICEF)
The inclusion of disability within efforts to address menstrual health during humanitarian emergencies: A systematized review. (Sep, Frontiers)
Water for Women guide on Partnerships for Transformation for WASH and Rights Holder Organizations includes a section featuring partnerships with organizations of persons with disabilities. (Link to pdf, Aug, Water for Women) See also their other recent publications that have taken efforts to mainstream disability.
Terminology Guidelines for Equality, inclusion and rights (Jun, Water Aid)
Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools: 2000-2021 Data update includes a section on disability which shows gaps in data and how changes are lagging: “schools were
more likely to have adapted infrastructure and
materials than disability-accessible toilets” (Jun, UNICEF)
Reflections on barriers to inclusion of older people with incontinence and their caregivers in humanitarian settings (Jan, Amita Bhakta)
A guide to making WASH workplaces inclusive considering gender equality, disability and social inclusion. (Dec, Institute for Sustainable Futures)