GDD 2023 Accessibility Story

Welcome

Hello and welcome to this story about accessibility and Global Donut Day 2023. We’re delighted you’re here  - we hope you enjoy and are able to learn things from what we’ve written. Our intention for this story is to share the deeply insightful project we undertook in 2023 to help make Global Donut Day 2023, and our future iterations, more accessible.

You might find some unusual words and phrases used in this story. These might not be used often. They might not translate well into other languages. And they might not be the simplest way to explain an idea or situation. So to help with this, we have included a glossary at the bottom of the story with easy explanations and examples for what these words mean.

How and why this project started 

The goal of the Doughnut is to meet the needs of all within the means of the living planet. What we need varies from person to person. The way we get what we need to live well is called access or accessibility. Accessibility cross-cuts every single social dimension of the Doughnut and is foundational to meeting the needs of all. This includes having access to conversations about, and ways to help shape the economy. 

In early 2023 DEAL started to create plans for a Global Donut Day (GDD). This would be a time where local communities around the world could share and celebrate how they were taking action on the ideas of Doughnut Economics.

In spring 2023 as these ideas were forming DEAL’s Community and Arts Lead, Rob Shorter, was delivering a community workshop in Oxfordshire UK to a varied group of interested local attendees. One of those attendees was Rebecca Lee, an Invisibly Disabled Accessibility Consultant, design researcher and founder of the Disabled led Universal Recognition (UR) movement.

This started a sequence of events that was to end in a wonderful collaborative accessibility and equity project.

Rebecca took part in the workshop alongside another member of the public who was a wheelchair user, they were also Deaf and typically used BSL to communicate. Rebecca grew up in a lip-reading household with a parent who was hard-of-hearing and so the two paired up for the workshop activities. They moved to a quieter, less busy area and took part in a slowed down more accessible way.

After the workshop Rebecca and Rob met for a cup of tea and chatted over their excitement about Doughnut Economics from their different perspectives. Rebecca spoke enthusiastically about the ways Disabled led creatives and accessibility could help Doughnut Economics to flourish and Rob shared some of his and DEAL’s exciting ideas for the global DEAL Community. They both felt inspired by the potential for more folks to be able to shape economic activities that are fairer for people and the planet.

Later that year as plans for the GDD were starting to take shape DEAL partnered with Rebecca and the Universal Recognition movement, to help improve the accessibility of GDD 2023. By the time DEAL and Rebecca met the Universal Recognition Movement was a growing network of Disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent accessibility consultants and creatives. They were collaborating with organisations to improve the accessibility of projects, policies, services and community tools. Everyone involved was keen to find out what UR and DEAL would be able to create working in partnership as a team.

For the GDD project an expert Universal Recognition (UR) accessibility research team was assembled. Rebecca facilitated accessible workshops where our Disabled experts were able to re-imagine public events they had attended in the past - changing things that hadn’t worked well. Together they researched creative ideas for how community events (just like the events DEAL and the global GDD organisers hoped to put on) could be more fun, fairer and accessible for everyone to take part in.

The UR expert’s insights were informed by their past experiences, present circumstances and ideal futures. Everyone collaborated and learnt from each other, discussing and designing imaginative ideas for improving event accessibility. The possibilities the groups created were hugely innovative and showcased exciting opportunities that would be of benefit to event organisers across the Global Donut network

As Rebecca says:

“We often use accessibility to simply describe what Disabled people need to live safely but in reality the positive effects of improving accessibility go even further. Access impacts folks with all sorts of experiences. Think of medical diagnostic tools that do not reference what conditions look like on black or brown folk’s skin for example - the accessibility of the resources are wrong and unsafe for everyone. Think of seatbelts in vehicles that are not accommodating to your size because they are not designed for your gender - the accessibility of the equipment isn’t suitable for half the population. When you navigate a world not built with you in mind you notice the products, systems and tools that are fit for society and those that aren’t. If we want to create an economy that is safe and just for real people, those creating it must have a diverse range of real world perspectives. If we achieve that we have a chance of making services, products and policies that are fit for the real people in our lives rather than accommodating a caricature ‘average person’ who nobody recognises because they don’t actually exist”.

Who our experts were 

To start the project, focus groups were organised according to the access needs that each expert 1) required themselves in order to take part and 2) represented in terms of their consultancy specialism. The groups were therefore arranged and led by experts with experience of:

• Physical Disabilities and chronic illness 
• Being d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing
• Neurodivergence and invisible disabilities
• Being blind or vision-impaired 

The accessibility experts also represented other intersectional experiences which included:

• Unpaid family care
• Ethnically minoritized communities
• Various religions
• Low income backgrounds
• LGBTQIA+ communities
• Parents of disabled children

The accessibility groups were mostly made up of folks who lived in the U.K. or who had family heritage of migration to the U.K. from the global majority. Others were based internationally. 

Assembling the Disabled-led project team from the Universal Recognition Movement meant that folks often had their own advanced accessibility specialisms, consultancy practices and community groups. This spanned a great breadth of skills and knowledge. Our experts represented initiatives for improved maternity care services for neurodivergent parents, community support for folks with MS right through to accessible infrastructure and travel services for blind folks.

Organisers from the GDD international community also took part and shared their understandings and experiences of accessibility in a survey. Through this they offered their local perspectives from all around the world including Global majority countries.

Going at an accessible pace

Setting up an accessible research setting where marginalised creatives can contribute takes time. An essential part of this project was to establish professional relationships of shared understanding and trust. Rebecca recruited a diverse group of accessibility consultants and people with lived experience of accessibility. DEAL enabled there to be a long lead in time for this recruitment process so we could assemble as diverse a group of experts as possible. The project team recognised that there are more barriers to participation for some people than for others. Accessibility, flexibility and a sustainable schedule needed to be attended to from the very beginning in order for the project to be successful.

What the project explored in detail

Our experts knew that economic and ecological events weren’t often accessible or designed with marginalised folks in mind. To get the project underway Rebecca first explored what our experts would change in order to improve accessibility and the inspiration that could be taken from their past positive experiences. 

The headline question was ‘What makes an event accessible?’ This was supported by a number of other questions that UR have commented on below. These questions included:

• What accessibility has worked well for you at past events? “Why we asked this - This question offered our experts opportunities to reflect on joyful examples of good accessibility that they had experienced in real life. Often traditional research will focus on asking people about the difficult things they are experiencing. This can be traumatic for those taking part and only gives us information on what is going wrong. Researching good accessibility helps us to learn more about the conditions needed to allow things to go well”
• If you were creating a futuristic event, what would that event include and how would it be accessible?’ ”Why we asked this - We asked this so that our experts weren’t constrained by barriers in their current realities. The activities linked to this question moved the workshop team beyond the practical issues caused by our current economic system so we could imagine better together. Exploring fiction can help us to invent things beyond what we currently experience” 
• What would you have changed at past events to improve things for your families, friendship groups and communities? “Why we asked this - This question helped us to better understand accessibility collectively and relationally. Often disabling barriers can be seen as something that only affects people individually. This question helped us to better understand how barriers that affect individuals also affect whole families, communities and groups. This question helps us to strengthen ties and think about the positive community outcomes of accessibility whilst we imagine better together”.
• How would you communicate accessibility ideas to someone who didn’t have any personal experience of accessibility or having access needs?. “Why we asked this - We know from previous research that improving accessibility requires a shared understanding between Disabled and non-disabled people. We also know that 69% of non-disabled people in the U.K. feel uncomfortable talking to disabled people (scope, 2022). Yet disabled people (through their experience of recognising their own access needs) often 1) understand how accessibility can improve everyone’s experiences - disabled and non-disabled alike, 2) know how to help each other navigate the harmful societal stigmas that can impact conversations about accessibility - including internalised ableism or insecurities and 3) love to share joyful examples of accessibility that helped their own accessibility learning journeys. This question helped us to explore what helps people to learn about accessibility in honest, inclusive and easygoing ways that everyone can get involved in and understand”. 

Some key discoveries from the project

Here are UR’s top discoveries from the creative project:

1. There were some fab examples of futuristic events and accessibility ideas that could help future event design. A surprising example was an expert describing how they would love to time travel back and forth to events and drop in at specific moments. In reality folks often missed out on attending events at the time they were happening due to illness flare ups or care responsibilities. Through this insight we understood that access to and connections with events over a long time period was essential. This could take the form of recordings, transcripts and establishing long term discussion platforms. It also showed us that enabling people to keep in touch digitally beyond events was very important. It made us think imaginatively about how to replicate live events in differing places or at home.
2. Our experts explained that what practically and emotionally affected them as Disabled people also affected those closest to them. Through this we better understood how both barriers and improved accessibility impacted Disabled people and their loved ones or caregivers together. No one was unaffected. This highlighted how accessibility is a community and collective issue, it doesn’t just affect individuals. We knew this was an important understanding that we needed to share with folks who had not yet experienced their own Disablement or the Disablement of a loved one. This understanding would 1) help communities improve accessibility together and 2) help prevent people experiencing loneliness or hardship when they too over the course of their lives were eventually impacted by Disability either personally or through the care of a loved one.

1. There was a deep concern that folks who had no personal experience of accessibility or Disability also needed to glean some shared understanding of what Disabled folks and their loved ones were experiencing. This was especially important to folks as they knew at some point everyone would be affected by Disability either through age, the care for a loved one or a temporary ailment. The experts started to collate ideas for how we could communicate accessibility advice to people who had no personal experience. Our experts described creative ideas that used play and humour. They emphasised the importance of building trusted relationships. They highlighted that we should utilise many different formats to communicate accessibility advice as “you don’t know who will be using the guides, they might have access needs too” even if they are currently unaware of them.

Top insight  - We need to create brave spaces in order to speak tough truths that enable everyone to take part.

The workshops were designed and facilitated in such a way that our expert team were able to speak their minds. To be brave in expressing what was not working for them at events and what could be improved. Often tough stories of hardship and poor living standards were shared. This included accounts whereby people’s essential needs were not being met. Often people had been disenfranchised and left in vulnerable and precarious economic circumstances. There was a lot of creative focus on thinking about how to communicate the essential nature of accessibility to people who don’t have personal experience of disability. Our experts wanted to communicate what accessibility actually is and why it matters. We recognised that whilst this project could not dismantle all the complex systems of oppression that create inaccessibility, we could help people to better recognise and understand the barriers that marginalized folks are facing. We understood that this would help to motivate people to actively start to improve accessibility so everyone can take part in building fairer futures.

What we made

After the workshops, Rebecca, and colleague Vinishree Solanki, analysed our expert’s comments. This helped to formally present and categorise recurring issues and themes. As the project timeframe was now limited the focus became to create an initial foundational toolkit that would help community organisers and their communities recognise the importance of improving accessibility and where they could start to take action. This document, like the research workshops, was designed to be especially useful for the DEAL Community organisers  who might be planning to put on a local GDD event. Like the insights gathered, it would help broaden people’s understanding of accessibility and express why accessibility is important for everyone in a fairer sustainable economy. 

The toolkit

We think you might be interested in the work we created as part of this project! There are two resources that will be especially helpful if you are a Global Donut Day festivals or Doughnut Economic organiser. Please use the following link to access them:

• Start Here GDD Meeting Needs Toolkit

Meeting the Needs of All: An explorer’s guide to accessibility. A two part digital resource for local organisers

• GDD Meeting Needs Guide Part 1
• GDD Meeting Needs Guide Part

The panel event

After the workshops our experts were also keen to stay part of the project. They wanted to know and to help shape how their information and creative ideas would be used. Their top recommendation was that there should be opportunities for them to represent themselves and share their expertise on accessibility and economics topics to the global GDD community. They wanted to be visible, heard and better understood on both a professional and social platform. Listening and tuning in to each other's needs - yours and mine - became a big theme. 

In response to this mission the group designed and hosted a panel event, a live conversation online, as part of GDD online programme. This would be an opportunity to platform and express some of their important insights on how economics might start to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet from Disabled and marginalised perspectives. The panellists (who had been research experts spanning our differing research groups) invested in the process of collectively preparing both the panel questions and their responses. This led to a wider exploration of what it means to be able to participate in the economy, and to participate in designing an economy that really meets the needs of all. The panel explored the many barriers marginalised groups face and ways to challenge these. The expert panel also shared reflections on what it means to be able to engage with Doughnut Economics in accessible ways. It was also acknowledged that whilst the panel event was so important, it was only scratching the surface of the issues faced.

We warmly invite you to listen and watch the recording of the panel event to find out more.

Accessibility information - The panel conversation has been translated into British Sign Language (BSL) for Deaf BSL users/audiences - we chose BSL as this was the indigenous sign language of one of our panellists. The panel event has also been captioned for English speaking hard-of-hearing audiences. Captioned panellists using BSL have also been interpreted in spoken English for blind and visually impaired audiences.

Meeting the Needs of All: Tuning in to Our Needs, Yours and Mine. A 50-minute panel event as part of DEAL’s online programme on Global Donut Day, 13th November 2023.

Please use the following link to access the recording:

• Meeting the Needs of All

The accessible comms kit

In addition to the event organiser kit Rebecca and DEAL’s Communication Lead Aimee Laurel worked together to produce an accessible brand guidelines and comms kit for the GDD organisers. The kit included Guidelines for local organisers to be able to implement better accessibility in their marketing and comms for their events. This included but was not limited to  information to help write in easy English, how to add alt text to images for blind and visually impaired audiences, templates for image descriptions and guidance on accessible colour contrasts. They also produced an accessible advertisement for GDD 2024 and the panel event in BSL alongside UR accessibility advisor and performer Sahera Kahn. 

Before the project Aimee had been very enthusiastic about accessibility but had not had opportunity to work with an accessibility advisor. Equally Rebecca had never had opportunity to work with an organisation's senior comms lead. The outcome was a robust and inclusive brand management toolkit. Both Rebecca and Aimee felt hugely appreciative of each other’s expertise and glad to have been enabled to collaborate in such a positive way.

“After collaborating Aimee and I feel very proud of what we achieved. It was hard unprecedented work but really worth it! Brand guidelines do not often focus on accessibility - I have never seen one with supporting info to help folks create better access ever. It felt like a very innovative piece of work. I am so grateful to Aimee for the all energy she put in. She is a very thoughtful and industrious collaborator!”

Rebecca had to say reflecting in the piece of work.

DEAL Platform Accessibility Audit

In November of 2023, parallel to the GDD accessibility project, DEAL enlisted the support of web accessibility experts to perform a full accessibility audit of this website, the DEAL Community Platform. Assessment was based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.1 and revealed several accessibility issues that need to be addressed.

From Karn Bianco, DEAL’s Digital Platform Lead:

“You can read a full summary of the audit, the issues it revealed, and our plans to address them, in our Accessibility Statement. In short, though, we will endeavour to make improvements in late 2024, if capacity permits, or in 2025 if not."

"This work is a priority for DEAL, but improvements require digging into the systems that power our platform, and some changes will be non-trivial to implement, so we need a bit more time to get our digital house in order.”

Project round-up

Things to celebrate and be proud of!

Here is a round-up of what went particularly well during the project:

1. We slowed down and paced the project in order to get the right group of people in the room. This afforded Rebecca, and the UR movement, the time needed to establish relationships of trust with the people and organisations (such as RNIB) that we needed in order for the project to be successful. These connections and relationships can continue to be built upon long into the future.
2. The group of experts Rebecca recruited represented a diverse and knowledgeable team of experts. Everyone in the working group was an organiser in their own community, expert in their field or budding accessibility advisor. The group brought together many intersectional experiences of Disability. 
3. The diversity of the research group enabled them to share diverse insights and highly innovative ideas, insights and ideas a more homogenous group might never think of.
4. Rebecca and the UR movement created a budget that would enable Disabled experts to be paid fairly for their contributions. If they were unable to receive financial compensation personally due to welfare payments or similar they were able to give payment as a gift to an accessibility or advocacy organisation that was important to them. 
5. Many of our accessibility experts became really interested in Doughnut Economics and invested in the project. Some even now speak on the topic as part of their accessibility advocacy work.
6. The project enabled DEAL to open the exploration into accessibility that will grow, develop and evolve from here.
7. The guide was available to all, in the Creative Commons, so Local Organisers were able to share it with their networks.

Things that didn’t go to plan that offer us opportunity to learn and improve

1. Whilst Rebecca’s recruitment for the Disabled led working group meant those workshops were well populated the parallel Accessibility Working Group for the GDD local organisers remained under-attended. Organisers were really excited about the accessibility documents created but very few GDD organisers engaged with the working group meetings to co-create them. The response to the survey that sought to understand the global community’s needs was also lower than we had hoped. Update: In 2024 UR responded to the GDD 2024 organiser’s needs by hosting workshops to help boost their confidence in starting their equity and accessibility work. These workshops were designed especially for folks with no previous knowledge of accessibility work and less experience working with marginalised folks in their locality. Feedback has shown that folks were keen to focus on accessibility work but didn’t know where to start. The workshops were well attended and folks were grateful for an opportunity to chat over their ideas and challenges.
2. Owing to the length of time the research process took and the amount of insights that were generated, the final guide for Local Organisers was only available a week before GDD 2023. Update: In 2024 the toolkit is now part of the established organiser pack that supports Local Organisers in preparation for their own GDD events. It is still however in a long read format which folks may not find easy to engage with whilst busy preparing events. This offers us opportunities to look at condensing the information into different media formats for future ‘easy to use’ or accessible  iterations.
3. The recording of the panel didn’t work as folks signing (i.e. communicating with no sound) were not picked up on the recording due to a recording settings error. The re-records took lots of time and effort to stitch together. However the resulting video was better than what we would have had even if the recording had worked. The re-recording especially offered our experts more time to contribute their slower-paced reflections and ideas. This has highlighted the importance of bringing great attention to the technology we use to make sure it is set up in accessible (often atypical) ways suitable for our Disabled and d/Deaf colleagues’ needs - especially when the default settings are often designed with an average user’s use in mind. We noted this issue would also affect dancers presenting their work on a video call alongside a live singer joining the call separately. We needed to visually capture the movement and only audibly capture the sound. This issue could affect many creatives including but not limited to presenters using sign language. 
4. The scope of the project meant there wasn’t the time or budget to design the toolkits in multiple or diverse accessible formats. Future iterations could be developed to meet the needs of those who: 1) don’t have previous knowledge of accessibility, 2) have specific accessibility needs, 3) have a less reading experience or time to read and 4) do not have English as a first language.
5. Rebecca highlights that whilst there were experts with heritage from global majority communities , this experience was under-represented. Future progress on the project would need to address this issue ensuring communities most impacted by climate change and economic injustices in the global majority are better represented. 

Our recommendations for the future

1. Potential to turn the guides (with all their information and insights) into different formats and replicate them in lots of accessible and creative ways. This could include translating them in different sign and spoken languages, diagrams or video formats. 
2. To explore opportunities that bring together disabled and non-disabled organisers more regularly. To create brave spaces where marginalised creatives can lead accessibility projects and folks outwith that experience can learn more about accessibility and equity.
3. Apply the accessibility learnings to the DEAL Community Platform and future GDD participation processes.
4. There is great potential for co-designing DEAL tools in many formats and more accessible ways.
5. The accessibility groups were mostly made up of folks who live in the U.K. or have a family heritage of migration to the U.K. And whilst some were based internationally, it would be good to have even longer lead times to recruit and assemble an even more diverse and intersectional research group with folks from a diversity of places across the global South.

The project’s impact

In the months following the panel event, more people joined the Universal Recognition Movement on social media and this has continued to build since the workshops in the summer of 2024. 

Reflecting after the project, Rebecca shared that

“It is very rare for this many experts with varied knowledge on accessibility to be able to collaborate and secure professional opportunities on a project - especially a project that is so wide reaching and impactful. Often investment in accessibility, despite being at the core of fair and just economics, is seen as separate to an organisations’ business operations - as a ‘nice to have’ but inessential option. It is rarely recognised as the fundamental part of the work that it is. The long-standing devaluing of accessibility and of marginalised people in our current economy has led to few experts with personal experience of marginalization being recruited in professional settings. Often if marginalized folks are finally recruited they are not fairly compensated for their labour - which makes the systemic issue of marginalization worse not better. Underpaying marginalized workers often occurs despite 1) the great knowledge and expertise Disabled/marginalised  professionals have and 2) the savings and benefits this type of work creates in the long term. Frequently institutions, organisers and policy makers have good intentions but the investment needed to authentically work on accessibility is not there. This is so frustrating for accessibility experts as we know undertaking accessibility work from the beginning is worth its weight in gold. Accessibility improvement is an investment that helps services and businesses work sustainably long into the future. This project felt so special to those of us taking part in it in so many ways. Those of us working on the project, including me, felt very emotional about how exceptionally equitable it was. On the one hand this was wonderful, we all feel proud of the project and what we achieved through it. On the other hand it is really sad to acknowledge that in a fair, functioning and flourishing economic system this type of work would actually be really unremarkable. It shouldn’t be unusual to have a project that invests in accessibility and equitably pays marginalized people for their work. It shouldn’t be unusual for top level decision makers to value Disabled people’s and unpaid carers’ ideas and inherent humanity - this should be really common place. In a fair and just economic future, it would be”.

As a result of the project the Disabled consultants and creatives who took part have been able to use it to build their professional profiles and confidence. This has already started to have an impact on their and our futures. Accessibility consultant and independent housing campaigner Calum Grevers reflects on the project by commenting

“As a disabled person facing multiple systemic and attitudinal barriers to my career development, being recruited through the Universal Recognition movement for DEAL’s Global Doughnut Day as a disability, inclusion and accessibility consultant was my first experience of paid work. In the past my mobility impairment and a lack of workplace accessibility has prevented me from taking the often physical, entry-level jobs that give nondisabled people a foothold in the labour market. Often employers do not value my lived experience as much as the more typical work experience that is expected. Alternatively employers can incorrectly assume my disability makes me unproductive or expensive to accommodate. Not many recruiters know how to recognise my aptitude for campaign work, skills or achievements. In addition, I claim Universal Credit (UC), compensating for my underemployment and supporting me to meet my housing costs - receiving UC means limiting myself to an inequitable earnings ceiling of £404 per month. If I exceed this amount in earnings it results in a reduction to my payments. These payments help me to cover the ‘Disability price tag’ (Scope, 2024) i.e. the extortionate costs I will face each month compared to that of non-disabled households. This earning ceiling not only disincentivises me from entering the world of work, but sanctions me for having career aspirations. Contributing my insights and lived experiences of disability to this project demonstrated to me the vital role those contributions have to play in achieving social, economic and environmental justice. This work also enabled me to gain the professional experience I needed without putting my finances at risk as our work schedules and payments were organised monthly by Rebecca to accommodate the UC earning cap. I now have a professional profile from which to seek other work. I now also know how to advocate for fair compensation that reflects my skill level and expertise”.

Being given professional and respected roles on this project offered our experts opportunities that started to break-down and dismantle barriers that have previously prevented them and others from experiencing life (and work) in the safe space of the Doughnut. There is a long way to go but UR reminds us in their mission statement that recognising and valuing Disabled people’s humanity and professional contributions is key to this work. 

Local organisers who are just beginning their accessibility work have fed back to Rebecca and UR how ‘innovative and informative’ the written toolkit is. Others who attended this year’s accessibility workshops said they felt ‘inspired’ to do more towards accessibility and really enjoyed the activities that focused on joyful accessibility and reminding ourselves ‘why we do this work!’. 

This project made a significant difference to everyone who took part, and it has started to put in motion a lot of things that are going to be of great benefit to both our network of GDD organisers and society in general.

What the future could hold…

The UR network hope in future to build on this work with DEAL making the documents themselves more accessible, fun and understandable at a glance. There is huge scope to explore video, diagrams, image descriptions, sign language descriptions and audio interpretations of the accessibility tips and UR’s accessible Doughnut Economics insights. 

“We would love to continue this work with a wider group of designers and experts. It feels important to tend to the growth of this project with creatives from the global majority, young people, community elders and folks with learning disabilities as they were not heavily represented in the initial project - who knows what might blossom and flourish from this work. If you are a circular economics investor, funder or project partner who would like to back and secure the continuation of this work we would love to hear from you! Please get in touch with the UR network and DEAL today to start the conversation and see what can be achieved!”

Rebecca UR founder and Accessibility & Equity Lead GDD 2024.

Please follow this link to connect with the UR network on LinkedIn:

Get in touch here

Glossary

Provided and developed by © Universal Recognition (UR) movement.

Access

Access or accessibility is what enables someone (often a Disabled person) to obtain to or achieve what they need to live well or safely. For example an accessible bathroom might enable a wheelchair user or short stature person to use the sink and toilet because it is designed for their use. The sink might be lower and have space underneath the basin for the wheelchair user’s legs so they can move close to it to reach the taps. The toilet might have a grab bar next to it to help someone to sit down or push up. Accessibility can be built into schedules, systems, policies, objects, products, tools, environments and social behaviour. 

Barriers

In this story barriers refer to the difficulties that prevent someone (often a Disabled person) from accessing the things they need to live well, with safety and dignity. Barriers can:

- be environmental like a wheelchair user being blocked by steps when they need a lift or ramp to access where they are going

- be social like doctor not understanding that a Deaf person can’t understand what they are saying when they are wear a mask because they usually lip-read to communicate.

- disrupt every aspect of life; barriers can occur within schedules, systems, policies, objects, products, tools, environments and social behaviour. 

Disabled

The word Disabled (when used within this story and UR’s work) refers to folks who are disabled by people’s attitudes and the barriers they face. The ways society organises access to services, products and environments can be Disabling to many if done badly. For example a wheelchair user trying to go to the bank might be Disabled if: 

• The architect designing the building wasn’t educated in accessibility and therefore didn’t recognise real people’s needs when working, as a result they included steps on the technical plans up to the customer entrance rather than a ramp. There was no budget to fix this error once the building had been built.
• The only physical access to the bank upon arrival is a set of steps that the wheelchair user cannot use.
• The bank used to have ramp access but the bank operations manager closed that route off as they assumed it was only needed for deliveries and not for customer access. 

In these examples both a culture of social ignorance and the built environment cause the disablement. People are most often Disabled by a world not organised or designed with them in mind.

Disability - The Social Model of Disability

The Social Model of Disability was defined by Disabled communities and academics. It says that people are disabled not by their impairments but how they are treated and the barriers they face in society. This is the understanding of Disability that this project and story uses to help dismantle barriers and to improve access.

Equity

The understanding that people’s circumstances can mean they need different types of support in order to have the same opportunities and access as other people. It is an understanding that all people deserve equal opportunities and access but that this might be achieved in different ways. A blind student may need audio recordings to read their college textbooks for example whereas a student with typical vision can read written text books. To receive an equitable level of education the differing students must receive the differing learning materials that they need to learn.

Equality

The understanding that all people deserve equal respect, value and recognition. Sometimes people can assume that Equality means everyone is to receive exactly the same resources or support - however this does not acknowledge that people have differing circumstances. Some people may need more or less resources or different types of resources to achieve equality. For example a deaf person in hospital may need a sign language interpreter in order to receive equal level of care as someone who is hearing. This is why we also have the term Equity too (see Equity for full definition).

Global Majority

Global majority describes all people whose families come from Asian, African, and Latin American communities. 

People often use this term when they are trying to better describe the communities in countries worst affected by international power imbalances, harm and exploitation.

In the past people have often referred to such communities as minorities or being located in the global South. However these terms do not represent the reality of the situation well, as:

• There are a greater number of people from global majority backgrounds than other backgrounds across the world - the global majority is the majority. 
• Natural migration across countries alongside war, displacement, forced movement and harm such trafficking within the transatlantic slave trade has meant that people from global majority communities now live all over the world - not just in the global South.

Indigenous global majority communities are the most likely to be harmed by the unfolding climate crisis, global power inequalities and exploitation. This is why global majority communities must lead, and be listened to, when it comes to decisions and action that is safe and just for people and the planet.

Impairment

Impairments can be parts of our bodies that don’t work as well as they typically could. They can also be parts of our bodies that are missing or that work differently. Impairments tend to be defined by and measured against what a typical body has or does when it works well.

As described above in the Disability definition Disablement is often caused by living in a world where people’s impairments are not designed for or accommodated, rather than being caused by their differences or impairments themselves. 

Unpaid Family Care

This phrase is used to describe the work of people who voluntarily care for children and disabled people in their household, family or community. We highlight that this work is unpaid to show how economically harmful this can be. People expected to undertake unpaid domestic work are often unfairly used within unjust, unsustainable and harmful economic systems. People undertaking unpaid care will often experience worse living conditions, more financial insecurity and hardship than those who are paid for their work. People undertaking unpaid family care are usually women, in places of conflict they can often be children themselves who look after siblings and injured older relatives.