how very refreshing to read this from someone who is just not prepared to sit back and take this from people…As a carer i would like to think i can be as respectful of disabled people as anyone else…. yet I was still taken aback at the things we take for granted as a society

Very well written piece.

A lot of people seem to get flustered around disabled people. Thats exactly why we need more awareness of it. Garion, you’re probably right about one thing. It is impossible to educate everyone about each and every diversity but dealing with a person with a disability is not rocket science. You just treat them like you would any other human being. It may seem like a different culture to some people but people with disabilities are not all that different. They’re not from another planet. Okay so there are differences in things they can and cannot do but you won’t know what those differences are until you actually talk to them.

Corina, that was an excellent article and as a disabled person, i can totally relate to everything you wrote. The thing that irks me is that there was talk about a disability bill coming in a few years ago and although I’m not sure if it came in or not, it doesn’t seem like it did. Nothing has changed. Supposedly all new buildings which were refurbished after 2001 were supposed to meet certain planning standards for people with disabilities i.e. accessibility and wheelchair toilets. That seems to be very relaxed though as a lot of public buildings still seem to have steps and very few places have wheelchair toilets…well pubs, restaurants and nightclubs anyway. If they do have disabled toilets, they are used as a storage area for cleaning materials as you said, they are not big enough to turn around in or they are used by able-bodied people who have no consideration or conveniently fail to realise its a disabled toilet.

I think people just need a bit more consideration and a bit more understanding…….

Disability Awareness day a great idea…I am lucky enough to be able-bodied, but when my mum was diagnosed with MND, I acquired a new skill as a ‘mobiliser’ . I was completely shocked at just how bad facilities are for citizens with restricted mobility and how thoughtless we cam be when it comes to using common sense when doing things like parking. Dont get me started on the Disabled Toilet issue, mops buckets, baby changing facilities…..and the disc’s….the way these are abused to the detriment of the intended users is disgraceful. I recall one very stormy day attempting to park at the Hospital. All the disabled spaces bar none were occupied by 4 x 4′s none displaying disc’s. The weather was so bad and my mum so ill I had to park illegally near the entrance to get her into the hospital safely.When I came out eventually I was clamped…Of course my mum got all upset…luckily I met the nicest parking security guy in Ireland who helped mum into the car removed the clamp and told me to come to the desk any time I needed to get mum in again…there were many such occasions to follow and true to his word he helped every time.You have no idea the stress that token took off me that day.

One of those things that people at first don’t know how to respond to and often through lack of exposure never learn to. I personally get a little flustered around dissabled people. I see it as another diversity which needs accommodation. It’s impossible to educate everyone about each and every diversity, but it is possible to teach people how to correcly behave in the face of diversity itself. And in Ireland we have been failing to do just this. So the dissabled have been marginalised. Along with anyone who isn’t a White catholic strapping straight settled Irish man.

I was lucky as a young child I used to visit my aunt and uncle who worked in a home for children with disabilities I grew up not seeing the difference, I played with them and I was the one that was different, when I was a teenager I worked for a yr there and the experince I got from it has stood to me, I am now in my 30′s and would never treat anyone in a way I would not like to be treated. when my son asked questions like kids do I would answer them as honestly as I could about someone he had seen with a disabilty. when my kids are old enough to volunteer I will be encourging them to spend time in a special needs school/home for children or adults to see life from a different view. I love the idea of councillors and T.Ds having to manage a day as a person with a disability. pushing a buggy around can be a nightmare it is a lot worse for ppl who are blind or use wheelchairs footpaths are too narrow, too high or broken. I loved the article so honest and refreshing.

I have lived with a disability for the past 28 years. I was diagnosed with aurtheritis now have three types. i have had numorous operation over the past ten years. including two total knee replacements and now am in a wheelchair because i had three joints fuesed in my foot. i have totally seen the other side . you feel like a second class person. or exactly what the author wrote in the bigining. i agree some of the people out there should see the world from our point of view . very well written well done.

People can be extremely ignorant. Only the other day I witnessed this first hand at the Post Office. A man was trying to push his daughter who was in a wheelchair in through the double doors (only one door was open). A man had gone in before me, could see he was struggling and didn’t bother to help him. I opened the door so the man could bring his daughter in but before he had a chance the other man just pushed passed him. I really had to bite my tongue before I said something I’d regret. Clearly small acts of kindness are not so frequent anymore.

I posted it on the Facebook version too but read this thread on boards and be in for a shock. Ran into it recently when searching for something else. People actually defending parking in disabled spots which sickened me and some of them caring for disabled people themselves but park in disabled spots when the disabled person isn’t with them to get closer to the store to save themselves walking.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056140450

I have been ill for over 5 years now – with what could b described as “ME” – But I find that term to be utterly pointless and without merit. It’s a convenient catch-all term that incompetent doctors use to label somebody with debilitating fatigue and weak immune response so that they don’t have to pursue it’s cause with the rigour it deserves. On a personal note, I have attributed the fall of my health to mercury toxicity from amalgam fillings and I’m currently on a heavy detox protocol to better myself.

In any case – This brings me to a case a few weeks back when I was popping into Tesco to get some groceries. I saw a woman park a big SUV in a disabled space. I see this all the time – So I was pissed off and approached her. I told her that those spaces are reserved for people with disabilities. Her English wasn’t great but she understood the point – and she started becoming abusive with me. Another chap who was passing by in his car rolled down the window and asked what was wrong – I told him that the woman had taken a disabled space, and he told her in very impolite terms where to take her car – as his daughter was disabled and always had to deal with people taking spaces.

The woman threw a disgusted look at us and moved her car. Normally it’s not worth the hassle – But I really hate people who take disabled spots – especially when there’s 200 free spaces in the car park.

21 Years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enshrined into law in the United States. This Act prohibits discrimination based on disability to a wide range of areas such as access to employment, public transport, public buildings and telecommunications. The ADA represented a significant landmark in the disability rights movement, it was the culmination of a civil society movement across the United States that fought hard to remove barriers that prevented persons with disabilities participating within their communities and society. The ADA has been hugely influential in shaping anti-discrimination laws throughout the world.

However, even today people with disabilities live in a far from equal society. I admire Corina Duyn’s suggestion for a “Disability Awareness Day”:

[Quote] On that day local politicians, shop and café owners and teenagers will be given a task to complete in the towns and cities of Ireland. All are disabled for a day: be it blind, seated in a wheelchair or suffering from hearing loss. [unquote]

However, when I was in college, every year the Students Union organised a “Disability Awareness” week. Non-disabled students would perform certain tasks such as going to the restaurants or buying coffee from a vending machine while wearing a blindfold or using a wheelchair. One student is usually sponsored to spend all day in a wheelchair, with the proceeds going to the Irish Wheelchair Association. The student then writes an article for the Students’ Union magazine, about his/her experiences.

In one article, the author described how she needed to use the bathroom and entered the wheelchair accessible cubicle. She wrote of her absolute “horror and disgust”, that somebody had scrawled “Pissy knickers” on the wall – something along the lines of: “Woe is me – after a hard, exhausting day, having to push myself ALL over campus… how could someone be so inconsiderate?”

While that was very unfortunate, I should point out that public bathrooms are vandalised ALL the time! I have seen despicable racist and homophobic comments scrawled on the bathroom walls in college – but nobody tries to “raise awareness” or “empathise” with students whose skin is a different colour or LGBT students.
The article ended with something along the lines of: “OMG, my arms are so painful! How on earth do wheelchair users do this every day?”
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I am not a wheelchair user myself, but I have volunteered at a summer camp for kids/teens with various physical disabilities for a few years. Out of those who can push themselves, the majority have superior upper-body strength compared to most able-bodied people, ie: they are USED to pushing themselves around. For an able-bodied person to spend just a few hours in a wheelchair is NOT going to mirror the every day experiences of people who actually have physical disabilities. That is NOT to say that wheelchair users do not have extreme difficulty doing ordinary things: I remember one teenage girl describing how there was a huge crack in the footpath near her house. One day, she was going to the shops, she tried to wheel herself over the crack but the wheelchair toppled over. It was a miracle she wasn’t injured. Her parents rang the council, and luckily they fixed the path a few days later, or else she would have been left housebound.

What irritated me the most about the article – is that the writer did not bother SPEAKING TO any wheelchair users on campus. It was ALL about her “wonderful deed” for the Irish Wheelchair Association and “Raising Awareness”. REAL Awareness of ANY issue should never exclude or exploit those more disadvantaged or vulnerable from the discussion.
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Instead of “Raising Awareness”, which is just a warm and fuzzy concept which makes non-disabled people feel good about themselves – we need ACTION. We need something like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which people with disabilities very courageously fought for back in the 1980’s. ADAPT, which is now one of the largest self-advocate organisations for people with disabilities in the USA, was established in Denver, Colorado in 1983. People with physical disabilities themselves campaigned for accessible public transport in cities all across America, by openly staging public protests.

Like EVERY other civil rights movement before them (women’s rights activists, African-American activists, LGBT activists etc.) – the ADAPTers were branded “militants” and “extremists”. All civil rights movements aimed to change attitudes and structures which the majority of more privileged individuals in society were comfortable with and had grown accustomed to.

Unfortunately, the disability rights movement has essentially been “airbrushed” from the history books. Every year since 1997, ADAPT have staged an at least annual protest outside the White House and various cities across America. Last year, 16 ADAPTers were arrested for causing a security incident at the White House, most of them wheelchair users – however, there was virtually NO media coverage: http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/09/21/adapt-protests-partially-lock-down-white-house-media-yawns-changes-subject/

There is nothing worse than being made to feel invisible. It is so much easier to assume that whenever a person who is disadvantaged, marginalised or vulnerable for whatever reason – asks for EQUAL access to housing, employment, education, relationships, etc. and to be treated with dignity and respect like EVERY other human being – that s/he just has a few “personal issues”. It is up to each one of us and SOCIETY in general to adapt, so that everyone can participate as much as they possibly can.

A Glimpse at the future.
The year is 2211, the big war is now a faded memory. Who wants to live in the past, what happened 200 years ago is irrelevant to modern day Ireland. Today’s society is a very caring society, not like the last century when people were so tied up in every day living that no time , or consideration was given to the less fortunate people.
But now its different, the changes made in the last 100 years have been amazing. A very small number of you still have not got the message so let me outline how you must help your fellow man. Some people have been born with legs that work, so we really must make allowances for them so please consider the following .
Able parking. These spaces are kept so the mobile won’t have to walk far, remember you are the lucky ones, you can travel much further in your wheel chair without tiring your self out.
Reserved areas in public places. These wheel-less chairs (while they are an inconvenience for us) are essential for the mobile to rest on, they are not for us to block up with baggage, or to be used as tables.
Building Regulations. If you are involved in buildings or architecture remember while the standard roof height is 5ft. (which is adequate for us in wheel-chairs) for a person who is mobile it is completely inaccessible as their average height is 5ft 6in, allowances have to be made no matter what the cost. Also on buildings special toilets must be provided for the mobile as they are not fortunate enough to have a catheter fitted and must go to the bath room more often. (Mobile people need a much larger specially adapted pot to pee in. This is a basic right to help them fit in to normal every day living, which most of us wheel chair users take for granted.)
Collections & Donations. When approached for a donation please don’t ignore the mobile, they have feelings too. Most of us don’t realise the extra cost of being mobile, i.e. getting seats put into cars, specially adapted kitchens, extra tall cookers, even down to footwear, (imagine if your shoes wore out, and had to be replaced at least every six months) . Don’t consider this as charity but as your contribution to helping the mobile live as normal a life as possible.
Public Transport. This I am afraid is where we really must make changes. I know it costs a lot to provide a wheel-less chair, and yes they do take up space, they are inconvenient for they rest of us to get around, they are a fire hazard and make evacuation in emergency awkward, but we really do have to make allowances no matter what the cost. When taken at the production stage a bus could actually be made with a stairs, instead of a lift (this idea is not as silly as it sounds, before the Great War all buses had stairs and it was the lift that was unusual).
Employment. Another area that a big effort has to be made. I realise that the mobile just cannot do certain jobs, (cost is the main barrier, imagine having to build an extra tall plane to accommodate a mobile
pilot). But jobs can be created for them. It has been found that when an employee is mobile the rest of the staff get used to the idea of talking up to a person with an ability, and customers like the idea that if a company employ a mobile person that this must be a company that cares.
So to conclude, with your help and tolerance life can be normal for the abled, and maybe someday everybody will have the luxury of being born in a wheelchair.

PS. I hope this article has not upset you too much but I could have really upset you by talking on the problems of those really unfortunate people who have been born with sight and hearing. Now they really do have a major problem coping in our modern caring society.

Brilliant post, Elaine. Some excellent ideas. I thought you were a wheelchair user at first because you obviously have a very good grasp of the problems disabled people have to face everyday. I wish there were more like you!

Apparently in the UK there’s a trend of breaking into people’s cars to get their disabled parking disks and so people who need them are afraid to even apply for them. I don’t get why people who don’t need these things are so greedy. For an able-bodied person it doesn’t even take a minute to cross a car park with a trolley of goods. What level of selfishness must a person have to feel like it’s ok to save that few lousy seconds of their time by taking up a parking space that was placed there for people who desperately need it? For some, it’s extremely painful or exhausting to walk across a car park and a space that’s wide and close to the building would make a huge difference.
That said, there are actually a lot of incidents of people getting confronted about their use of a disabled parking space even though they have a legitimate reason and have the permit. These people usually have a disability that is not visible on the outside. They may not use a wheelchair or crutches, or may only use them occasionally, like when they’ve done a certain amount of walking one day and it’s becoming painful/tiring. It’s wrong of, for example, a depressed person to pretend they need a disabled parking permit, but there are conditions that are just as invisible as depression and that cause the person to need accommodations like these.
I guess the point I’m making is that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that the right way to deal with a person who you suspect of fraud use of a disabled parking space or of stealing a permit is to report them to police, not just yell at them in the street.
It’s great that the writer has shed light on the supposedly wheelchair-friendly facilities that are actually not wheelchair-friendly. It’s horrible to think that a person in need of those facilities would be fooled into thinking that they can go somewhere, like a pub or a restaurant, and be comfortable doing so, only to discover on arrival that the doors are too narrow or the bathroom is impossible to use.

No offence to people with genuine disabilities but part of the problem is that in many countries the definition of disability has been expanded to included such groups as acute athsmatucs and depressives, thus greatly increasing the sheer competition for disabled facilities. I often drive my mum who has had knee operations and in fairness we generally find that where disabled spaces are full, it’s because they are used by genuinely disabled people.

The problem that disabled facilities are not prioritised on the grounds of severity and increasingly people have access to disabled facilities on the grounds of more minor problems. The result is that there isn’t enough to go round. On a lot of levels.

In fairness to buildings interestingly we find that older buildings sometimes will go out of their way to help put, bringing you through staff lifts and non public facilities rather than struggling. The trouble with newer buildings is there’s a an attitude that once there’s a ramp and a disabled loo that’s good enough. It can sometimes be harder than with buildings that haven’t been adjusted.

And don’t start me on stingfests that don’t open more mobility friendly doors instead of heavy doors in order to save money.