Auckland Art Gallery facade

Arts organisations and venues will become more accessible this year, thanks to eleven grants provided by Creative New Zealand for projects ranging from sign language interpretations and audio described performances to music workshops and concerts for disabled children and young adults, and improved physical access.   Totalling $30,000, the one-off grants are being administered by Arts Access Aotearoa through its Arts For All Programme, a partnership programme with Creative New Zealand. The aim of this programme is to work with representatives from the disability sector to support arts organisations, venues and producers to improve their access.

Stephen Wainwright, Chief Executive, Creative New Zealand said the one-off grants signal the organisation’s commitment to supporting improved access to arts events for all New Zealanders. They complement the publication Arts for All: opening doors to disabled people and the annual Big ‘A’ Creative New Zealand Arts for All Award.  “It’s great to see the range of projects and the organisations’ enthusiasm to build new audiences by making performances, facilities and information more accessible to disabled people,” he said. “I look forward to seeing the long-term impact of this investment and of Arts Access Aotearoa’s Arts for All Programme.”

Richard Benge, Executive Director, Arts Access Aotearoa said the one-off grants build on the work being done through the Arts For All Programme. They have also prompted valuable discussions with the organisations.  “I am very pleased to see the level of commitment and creative ideas coming from the arts community to improve access for everyone wanting to engage in the arts,” he said.

The eleven grant recipients will also contribute their own funding to their projects.

The grants will go to

• Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki to increase access to its programmes, provide disability awareness training for staff, and provide a series of signed talks about works in its collection in 2012

• Auckland Theatre Company to install ramps in its premises and make its website more accessible to people with a visual impairment

• Capital E National Theatre for Children to provide signed performances of three different works in its 2012 programme

• Chamber Music New Zealand to present a workshop and concert in the Wellington Town Hall for disabled children and young adults so they can experience live music up close, and interact with musicians and their instruments

• Fortune Theatre, Dunedin to establish best practice methodologies for audio-described performances and present six audio-described performances in 2012

• New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to increase the number of its performances to students in special needs schools in Auckland

• Pablos Art Studios, Wellington to provide staff training for its tutors, enhancing their engagement with those studio’s artists who have visual, hearing or communication impairments

• Q Theatre, Auckland to develop an accessibility policy and action plan, promote its access to a wide audience, and provide disability awareness training for staff, board and management

• Silo Theatre, Auckland to provide signed performances of Tribes by Nina Raine, an award-winning work about the politics of communication for hearing, hearing impaired and Deaf people

• Studio2, Dunedin to display artwork by disabled artists to professional standards in its exhibition space

• Theatre Royal Charitable Trust, Christchurch to contribute to the installation of an accessible lift, catering for disabled patrons, to the upper levels of the Isaac Theatre Royal.

Source: Arts Access Aotearoa

M Shed – which is part of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives’ – has recently received a Jodi Mattes Trust Award for Digital Access onsite. Their PenFriend Audio Access project was announced as the winner at a recent presentation held at Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum.   The awards relate to the use of existing technology to widen access to information and collections for disabled people more effectively and creatively. They were first given in the UK in 2003, European Year of Disabled People, and celebrate practice that inspires locally, nationally or  internationally.  The  PenFriends are audio devices that allow visitors to M Shed to listen to stories in the galleries. This is a free service provided to visually impaired visitors and to those who have difficulty reading print.

The M Shed also has induction loops, many of the films and video clips have subtitles, and transcripts of oral histories are available.  There are tactile maps of Bristol and other exhibits that can be handled in many of the galleries.

M Shed, as part of Bristol City Council, is committed to providing a website that’s accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.  They endeavour to conform to level Double-A of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 by building their site using code compliant with the W3C standard. The technical wording for this is “valid HTML 4.01 Strict for structure and CSS for presentation”.  The site displays correctly in current browsers – though there may be visual differences. Using HTML/CSS standards means any future browsers will also display content correctly.   Whenever possible, links are written to make sense out of context.   The text size on the site is specified in a way that makes it resizable in any browser, should it be too small to read comfortably.  M Shed is keen to hear from people if anything needs changing to make their site more  accessible.

M Shed is fully accessible to wheelchair users, and wheelchairs can be borrowed. There is level access throughout and lifts to all floors. These lifts are designated fire evacuation lifts and have tactile buttons and spoken floor announcements.   There are accessible parking spaces and a drop-off/ pick up point for taxis, accessible toilets, changing facilities, and café.  Visitor Services staff have been trained to meet the needs of all visitors. For further information about accessible facilities contact the museum on 0117 35 26600 or emailinformation@mshed.org

Scotland made disabled access part of its entertainment licensing laws in October this year (provision for disabled visitors is now a condition for getting a new alcohol licence).  Though current UK equality law says disabled people must receive an equal experience to non-disabled peers, the reality is different, and music fans who have disabilities often find themselves excluded from live music events. The UK charity Attitude Is Everything has created a Charter of Best Practice to help live music venues adapt. As part of the initiative, it’s launching the State of Access report, a comprehensive study based on two years of research across 100 venues around the UK.   Attitude Is Everything is the brainchild of Suzanne Bull who – at 4ft 3 in tall – got trapped between the barriers at the front of a festival stage 20 years ago, when there was no such thing as access for people with disabilities.  ”I had 100,000 people pushing behind me,” she says. “It was a very dangerous situation but luckily a security guard saw me and pulled me out. I remember thinking: ‘If I get out of  this alive, I will do something to improve gig access for disabled people.’ [That festival] now has a regular clientele of 700 disabled customers, an accessible campsite and viewing platforms at nearly all the stages.” (Source, The Guardian).

Good news for those with disabilities in or visiting the UK.  There is a new guide to accessible activities in Britain’s National Parks.  On top of that, a sensory garden for children and people with disabilities is to be created in an area of Liverpool’s Calderstones Park.  The garden will include specially selected plants and landscape features to stimulate the five senses and will include sound, water, air, wildlife and the texture and smell of plants.   The area is being developed as part of Liverpool’s Decade of Health and Wellbeing 2020 which aims to encourage healthier lifestyles, and will open in Spring 2012.  The £30,000 cost of the garden is being funded by a government scheme to enable and enhance facilities for disabled  children.

Meanwhile, the Co-Operative Travel company  has expanded its disabled-friendly high-street agencies, increasing, from 42 to 89 the number of branches that have staff with specialist training.  They provide essential information such as about airport facilities, and are equipped with power-assisted doors, portable hearing loops and visual alarms in store.

Two new text books on accessible tourism are available through the European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) from Channel View Publications. The first is “Concepts and Issues” (eds: Dimitrios Buhalis and Simon Darcy), which sets out to  explore and document the current theoretical approaches, foundations and issues  in the study of accessible tourism.  Professor Nigel Morgan, The Welsh Centre for Tourism Research states that this volume harnesses “the best conceptual  developments on the topic” and that it will “take accessible tourism and universal design debates into the mainstream of academic enquiryand industry practice“

The second volume is “Best Practice in Accessible Tourism” (eds: Buhalis, Darcy, and Ivor Ambrose).  It focuses on policy and best practice in accessible tourism, reflecting the ”state-of -the-art” as expressed in a selection of international chapters. It brings together global expertise in planning, design and management to inform and stimulate providers of travel, transport, accommodation, leisure and tourism services to serve guests with disabilities, seniors and the wider markets that require good accessibility. Chapter 8, written by Sandra Rhodda of Access Tourism New Zealand, describes the state of accessible tourism in this country.  Overall, the book gives ample evidence that accessible tourism organisations and destinations can expand their target markets as well as improve the quality of their service offering, leading to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty and expansion of business.  Accessible tourism is not only about providing access to people with disabilities but also it addresses the creation of universally designed environments that can support people that may have temporary disabilities, families with young children, the ever increasing ageing population as well as creating a safer environment for employees to work. Noel Scott, of the University of Queensland, Australia says that the volume “provides a ‘state-of-the-art” assessment of both theory and practice. This book establishes a new field of study and provides the benchmark against which other contributions will be judged. It integrates the work of all the key players and should be read by academics, managers and government policy makers.”

Hotel News UK reports that hoteliers throughout the United Kingdom have made strides to boost the number of accessible rooms in recent months as London gears up for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  In doing so, they hope to capitalize on the more than £2-billion (US$3.2-billion) tourist segment for disabled people.  There are more than 1,540 hotels and bed and breakfasts listed on the Government-backed Inclusive London website, which was launched in March 2011 to promote accessible rooms to all tourists visiting the city. There are a further 122 accessible hostels.

A lot of work has gone into improving accommodation access, says Ufi Ibrahim, CE of the British Hospitality Association.  “We’ve been working with tourism organization Tourism for All to raise awareness.  Many hoteliers in London have been doing sort of small quick fixes in order to enable some rooms to be usable for people who have accessibility problems—ramps, for example.”

Other changes are more long-term.   InterContinental Hotels Group, which has 294 accessible rooms in London, invested more than £12 million (US$19.3 million) seven years ago into its portfolio to ensure compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act. The resulting efforts saw the inclusion of tactile signage and ceiling track hoists in select locations. IHG also requires all employees to undergo training programs on how to accommodate guests with disabilities, both during orientation and then once every six months for review.

By summer 2012, there will be 2,667 accessible rooms in London, 1,392 of which will be wheelchair friendly.  But with a potential market of 78 million American and 75 million European disabled visitors, friends and families according to VisitEngland, it is uncertain whether supply will meet demand, Ibrahim said. Hoteliers are ramping up development efforts in an attempt to do just that. Premier Inn plans to open four additional properties before the Games. The group also recently opened the London Stratford Premier Inn, the first among the company portfolio to offer fixed tracker hoisting mechanisms. Hilton Worldwide encourages development of accessible rooms through a flexible room layout, said Alex Humphrey, senior manager of safety and security for the U.K. and Western Europe. “Each hotel has the ability to customize rooms with accessibility equipment to increase the number of accessible rooms, in addition to providing dedicated equipment for those guests with hearing impairments,” he said.

AccessibilityOnline represents a collaborative training program between the ADA National Network and the US Access Board. The program includes a series of free webinars and audio conferences on different topics of accessibility. Sessions are held on a monthly basis and cover a variety of topics concerning accessibility to the built environment, information and communication technologies, and transportation. The training is being coordinated and hosted by the Great Lakes ADA Center to provide accurate and quality training on the Architectural Barriers Act and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA/ABA) Accessibility Guidelines and on electronic and information technology accessibility standards (Section 508).  The next section is on accessible marinas and boating facilities and is being held on November 3rd.  You can submit questions for the webinar here.

In June, the World Report on Disability was launched by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.  A key recommendation of the World report is the need to strengthen research. Without evidence on issues such as need and unmet need, costs, impact of services, quality of life of people with disabilities, it is difficult to make recommendations for how countries can respond more effectively. Two forthcoming research symposia will contribute to addressing gaps in research on health and rehabilitation. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University of Sydney are each sponsoring a meeting where new and established researchers will present their research.

The best papers from these meetings will be published in the journal Disability and Rehabilitation, one year after publication of the World report, together with other contributions which focus on the contribution of rehabilitation to improving the lives of persons with disabilities. Papers are encouraged which relate to recommendations for research outlined in the report:

• The impact of environmental factors (policies, physical environment, attitudes) on disability and how to measure it; 
• Measures of the lived experience of people with disabilities, including measures on quality of life and well-being;
• What works in overcoming service barriers in different contexts;
• Effectiveness and outcomes of rehabilitation services and programmes; and 
• The cost–effectiveness of public spending on disability programmes.

Wherever possible, research should reflect the active participation of persons with disabilities themselves, and be grounded in the human rights approach. The deadline for submissions of papers is January 15 2012.  Given that journals such as Disability and Society, Alter and the Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research have also welcomed the publication of the World report, there is scope for publication of research relevant to other issues – support services, accessibility, education, employment – in other journals.

The WiderNet Project’s Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL) serve people with disabilities in developing countries who lack adequate Internet access.  It is supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In collaboration with the United States International Council on Disability (USICD) the GDRL brings a wealth of global information to disabilities organizations, disability rights advocates, and policymakers. Millions of people around the world will find it easier to access hundreds of thousands of educational and organizational resources on disability rights, whether or not they have access to the Internet. The library’s collection includes resources such as information on independent living, advocacy, education, transportation, public policy, employment, vocational rehabilitation, and other topics.

The WiderNet Project is a non-profit service program in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa that promotes low-cost information and communication for underserved populations.  It has developed The eGranary Digital Library, also known as “The Internet in a Box”, an off-line information store that delivers over 14 million educational resources to people living in underserved areas of the world. Many of the subscriber institutions have no Internet access. Even those who have an Internet connection experience slow, unreliable and very expensive service. Often, teachers, students, and practitioners must pay per minute while online and it literally takes days to search a website. The eGranary Digital Library delivers digital information directly to Web servers inside the institution, bypassing the problem. With the eGranary Digital Library, thousands of people can access the information — websites, electronic books, journals, and software — over their local area networks quickly and at no cost. The eGranary is already installed at over 350 universities, schools, government ministries, health care centers, and libraries worldwide.

Access Tourism New Zealand materials will appear in the Global Disability Rights  Library eGranary without modification, retaining all citations, copyright information, author information, and credits – exactly as they appear on the internet at the time.

A study by the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research estimated that one in 10 visitors to Montana arrived on a motorcycle. That’s about 1 million people (Billings Gazette).    And increasing numbers are older riders on big cruising or touring bikes. Survey data from the Motorcycle Industry Council, a private industry group, shows that the median age of bikers increased from 27.1 in 1985 to 41 in 2003. At the same time, the percentage of owners in the 40-to-49 age group increased from 13.2 to 27.9 percent, and the percentage of owners 50 or older went from 8.1 to 25.1.  That means more than half of owners are 40 or older, supplanting the once-dominant 15-to-29 age group. The transition to older motorcycle owners started to make its statistical presence known as early as 1990, and has been edging up since.

Meanwhile, the American Motorcyclist Association’s latest data shows the average age of motorcyclists is even older, at 48.