This week is plain English Week. Plain language adds value to accessibility and usability. Well written plain English is useful for everyone.

Plain English is also fine when talking about disability. If you don’t need to use long medical terms when referring to impairments and disability then don’t use them. Use plain English your audience will understand and find meaningful.

There is also too much jargon surrounding disability, and we’re all guilty at times. It is OK to say “Please explain what you mean!”

You can get involved by supporting Plain English Power for free. This excellent site has lots of information about using plain English every day and everywhere.

There is also some plain English pointers at AccEase.

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Last year TV one’s Breakfast presenter Paul Henry made remarks that were offensive to disabled people, but in particular to members of People First, people with learning disabilities.  The resulting complaints process has vindicated their concern. The text of the statement broadcast by TV One is not an apology, and it doesn’t mention Paul Henry’s name. But the decision made by the Broadcasting Standards Authority is significant and worth reading in full.

It recognises that the denigration of Susan Boyle, while not harming her, did harm others, which is significant.

Here is the minimalist statement from Television New Zealand. (Paul Henry’s name is included in brackets.)

“Last year during ‘What’s In The Mags’, Breakfast screened comments about the singer Susan Boyle. The comments were made by a Breakfast presenter [Paul Henry] and concerned Ms Boyle’s intellectual disability.

TVNZ upheld viewers’ complaints that the comments breached the broadcasting standard requiring Good Taste and Decency. The presenter [Paul Henry] also made a public statement saying he had not intended to cause offence.

Eleven complainants were not satisfied with the action taken by TVNZ, and referred their complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

The Authority agreed with the complainants, finding that TVNZ had taken insufficient action to remedy the breach of standards. It noted that no statement or apology had been made on the Breakfast programme, and that the presenter’s [Paul Henry's] public statement was inconsistent with his comments and behaviour in the item.

The Authority said that to mock and belittle a person on account of her intellectual disability was contrary to common decency and a clear breach of the Good Taste and Decency standard.

The Authority ordered Television New Zealand to broadcast this statement.”

Thanks to the Human Rights Commission for distributing the text of the statement in their disability newsletter Manahau. (Manahau is well worth the free subscription, particularly if you want to keep up to date on human rights and disability.)

Mediawatch on Radio NZ took the case seriously enough to discuss implications of the case in depth on its Sunday morning programme. (August 1)

The action taken by disabled people and their supporters using complaints tools to stand up for their rights is a practical example of rights in action. They have won, and in winning have made a difference for everyone.

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Recent widespread outraged reaction over Paul Henry’s gratuitously insulting language on the Breakfast Show is an indication of the role social media is playing in establishing strong national disability networks. The response from across disability groups also shows that the silos between different impairment types are beginning to break down, which can only be a good thing.

Paul Henry, and perhaps also TVNZ clearly had no grasp of the effect that so many disabled people and their supporters being connected online would have. Facebook was running hot and hectic, with pages I thought too extreme to join. Feathers were ruffled on Twitter, even among people who had no connection with disability. Various blogs of excellent quality debated the issues raised.

Because organisations like the Human Rights Commission and Broadcasting Standards Authority have online complaint forms, making complaints has become easier, with guidance on the way to frame them being readily available. Henry thought that IHC had it in for him, but it wasn’t just IHC. A whole range of disabled people and organisations took up the cause of a popular figure and a group of people who have little access to the media to fight back.

This is not the first time such campaigns have been conducted. Back in the nineties, before social media were invented, an international sports-shoe maker created an advertisement extremely insulting and offensive to disabled people. Within a very short time international networks had distributed the email addresses of advertising and other executives. This resulted in a flood of emails making it very clear that the shoe-buying dollar would be spent elsewhere. The advertisement was withdrawn and individual apologies emailed.

Establishing a new social action group on an issue previously hidden and not discussed has also benefited from social media and online connectedness,

This combination has meant the Disability Clothesline has been able to establish a national project quickly, and begin debating the issues of violence towards and abuse of disabled people in a way that would have been impossible even a few years ago before there was a critical mass of disabled people online

Such actions and campaigns can only become more sophisticated and organised. Watch this space.

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It is interesting to hear Judge Peter Boshier from the Family Court calling for a radical rethink of the way we deal with domestic violence in New Zealand. He cites cases of suicide because of the lack of support for victims. He also cites the lack of accountability of the perpetrators through programmes never completed.

Nowhere is the need for action more acute than in the disability community where reporting is low, and penalties for murder lighter than for murder of non-disabled people. I know of at least once case of suicide caused by bullying, and more attempts.

Domestic violence has a different meaning in the disability context. The nuances include the usual domestic and family violence which includes murder. It includes bullying in the workplace and in schools at all levels which is nonetheless violence if not domestic violence. All forms, including domestic violence, are experienced by disabled women and men.

Violence also occurs in institutions large and small. This is complicated as the perpetrators are sometimes in paid employment with service providers. If violence comes from other residents there are often few choices or alternatives for either party in their living arrangements or who they live with. But in either case it is the victim’s home. They have nowhere else to live or to escape to. Violence prevention services are beginning to take notice but their focus is quite limited and inadequate in the disability context.

As White Ribbon Day approaches I am struggling with this as I reflect on the unnecessary suffering many disabled people experience at the hands of others in a variety of situations. We have all got stories to tell, but to tell them is a frightening prospect. Many have been deeply buried for a long time and bringing them into the light of public scrutiny may seem like opening old wounds, It can also feel like inviting more pain from those who already think they have he right to intrude in disabled people’s lives in ways they would never consider appropriate for non-disabled people.
Victims who experience this include children and the most physically and psychologically vulnerable and fragile people in our communities.

This “ownership” of disabled people and their issues by others results in a fundamental and significant difference between violence experienced by disabled and non disabled people. It must be acknowledged and understood by anyone who wants to work in this area.

The Disability Clothesline therefore is a project whose time has come. It provides a medium for disabled people to safely tell their stories and perhaps find some healing by decorating tee shirts with their stories in whatever way they want. Supporters and those fortunate enough not to have a story to tell can sign a supporters’ sheet. The tee shirts and the sheet are hung on the clothesline for all to see, to provide education and promote action.

The project wants everyone to know that:

• Violence and abuse against disabled people is not OK
• It is OK to talk about it and share stories
• Violence towards and abuse of disabled people is a serious problem
• Action can be taken to prevent and detect it
• Everyone can do something about it
• As an issue it is just as important as other forms of violence
• Disability violence and abuse is part of the white ribbon campaign

We are hanging out our dirty washing in public. You can too. Nothing about us without us!

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I have been so busy tweeting, Facebooking, watching videos on Youtube and whatnot that I am forgetting about my poor old blog! All this social media stuff is quite time consuming. It does allow you let off steam though. I posted to Facebook immediately over a very annoying incident when Steve tried to take a taxi to get our empty cook top gas bottle filled. The driver refused on the grounds of ‘dangerous goods’! Fortunately he found one that would take him and the bottle. Gas bottles are heavy when full and the filling station is some distance away. So much for carbon footprint – It’s just another way to discriminate against those of us without cars.

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A couple of weeks ago I was asked to be a panellist to discuss a film in the Human Rights Festival. The film was called Nobody’s Perfect. Since it has an English title I was unconcerned until I was given a copy to preview. Imagine my chagrin, well really my frustrated pissed offness when I couldn’t follow it because much of the dialogue was in German! We tried having it read to me but that is too slow and disruptive, so basically I had to say “no” and explain that subtitled movies are inaccessible to people with low vision or who are blind, and that’s even before you even consider audio description.

Its just as well I found out in advance or it would have been embarrassing for both me and the organisers.

Movies in mainstream cinemas or festivals are never advertised as being subtitled, unless they are captioned for Deaf audiences.

I didn’t attend the screening but heard afterwards that one of the panellists was from the medical school! I know the film was about so called “thalidomides” and no disrespect is intended to that person. But surely we should expect anyone who is involved in human rights activities to have got beyond medicalising disability – even if the subject is related to impairment as the result of drug companies marketing a product after it was know to have side effects.

Disability and human rights are obviously not yet subjects that everyone in the human rights community in New Zealand has quite got to grips with yet. How long will it take?

The festival has finished in Wellington and finishes today in Auckland, but has still time to run in Christchurch and Dunedin.

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“Braille is to fingers what print is to eyes” (RNZFB)

It would be very remiss if a blog entitled Low Visionary did not acknowledge the birthday of the man who was one of the initiators of accessible information, at least in hard copy. Louis Braille’s 200th birthday is being celebrated around the world this year.

A celebration in Wellington to mark his birthday drew attention to the contribution of this man from a humble background to the lives of millions of blind people.

January 4, 2009, was the 200th birthday of the creator the tactile code of raised letters and numbers and musical notation that has allowed blind people around the world to read and achieve the great gift of literacy.
While many think that the advent of computers, assistive technology and the Internet have made Braille obsolete, nothing could be further from the truth. Children who are born blind need Braille to learn to read and write, and refreshable Braille displays on computers now provide access to information such as email in a way that Louis Braille could never have imagined. Technological developments have revolutionised the lives of blind and deaf blind people, making new information more readily and cheaply available in Braille.

Louis Braille

Louis Braille was French. He was blind from the age of three as a result of an accident. As well as inventing the code that is named after him he was also a skilled musician, playing the cello and the organ to a high standard. He was only 15 when he invented the code that was to be named after him, but died of tuberculosis in his forties.
“Braille is knowledge and knowledge is power” was one of the catch cries at the celebration. There is still some way to go if blind and deaf blind people world-wide are to achieve that power. Only 5% of printed material is available in formats that blind people can read, according to the Foundation of the Blind.

I don’t read Braille, but if I lost my sight completely I would still want to be able to read and write. I might well learn Braille. You can find out more about Braille and the celebrations from the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.

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A new year and new resolutions – not – although I have considered starting regular swimming again after all that Christmas food!

Anyway Happy New Year to everyone out there in the blogosphere!

The holidays have passed quietly in this corner of the capital, with the usual amount of moderate over-indulgence. I can’t prevent myself from adopting a kind of siege mentality at this time of year and over-estimate the amount we can eat. My favourite pastime as I recover is relaxing with a glass of wine and a stack of good books. It is a restful antidote to the highly contagious and exhausting lemming rush towards Christmas which I always swear I will avoid but never can.

Things went a bit pear shaped on New Year’s Eve morning when we awoke to a steady drip as a pipe leaked copiously from two floors up. That kind of catastrophe is one of the (few) disadvantages of living in an apartment I guess.

Over the holidays I have been reading about and reflecting on some disability topics, including disability culture, wondering what it means to your average crip or blindie in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I have found the concept lurking in some surprising places on the Interweb thingy, including knowledge of it being specified in several public sector-type job ads. It made me wonder if the people who wrote them could tell me what they mean. They are probably all away on holiday, otherwise I might ring one or two and ask them out of curiosity. If I find out I will publish their answers here.

I would be interested to know what readers think about disability culture. Does such a thing exist? If so what is it? What does it mean to disabled people in NZ today? Post your thoughts.

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Around 2.30 pm on Stuff home page.

Govt hired PI to watch rugby on TV
A Government ministry hired a private detective to watch World Cup rugby final matches on television to see if advertising was run in the programme, a court has heard.

‘Hideous’ abuse exposed as child killer jailed
The mother of a murdered South Auckland infant wailed as the “hideousness” of their baby’s killer was exposed at the High Court in Auckland this morning.
Mother’s anguish after daughter killed
White Ribbon – in defiance of violence

Teen lay on the road after death drive
A teenage driver tried to get himself run over as a woman lay dying under the van that he flipped on the Pahiatua Track, a court heard.

Bondage dungeon owner sentenced
A Christchurch man who cut scar patterns into teenage girls in a purpose-built suburban bondage dungeon has been sentenced to nine months home detention.

Editors’ Picks
- Most Viewed
- Disgraced swimmer pleads guilty to bashing
- Election of Obama leads to more hate crimes
- Violent fighting outside High Court
- Arrest over Rotorua road rage shooting
- Blackadder returns for Christmas special
- Front-facing buggies may stunt babies’ brains
- Kiwi seeks compo over alleged abuse by Aussie priest

Blackadder seems to be the only light relief, apart from the rugby story. It is patently obvious why we so desperately need White Ribbon Day and Its not OK campaigns. Today is white ribbon day.

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I was interested to hear Alastair Thompson, proprietor of Scoop talking to Kim Hill on national radio at the weekend. He used the media releases of the Minister for Disability Issues as an example of material which is interesting to disabled people as a particular group but not to the mainstream media. It obviously stood out in his mind as one of the more under-covered media topics.

What he didn’t say is that disabled people are 20% of the population, but obviously not the important 20% in the eyes of the media. Those who want to communicate critically important information to the disability community know that media releases, no matter how well written or interesting, will sink like a stone in the mainstream media. If it doesn’t bleed it doesn’t lead. But at least the releases can be aired on scoop.

When you search for ‘disability’ there it all is. But what about the ‘spin?” The mainstream media has no spin on disability? Yeah right. At least on Scoop you know who is generating the information in the release so you can make your own informed judgement on their ‘spin’.

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