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

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.”

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.

The deaf, deaf-blind, speech and hearing-impaired community in New Zealand will soon benefit from an expanded range of communication services says government  minister of Information and Communication Technology, Steven Joyce.  New services to be progressively introduced from late this year will include captioned telephony, which allows people to read live captions of spoken phone conversations. People will also be able to contact the relay contact centre by mobile phone, and use a prepaid calling card to make international calls by Internet relay.

Louise Carroll, Chief Executive of The National Foundation for the Deaf (NFD), said the new captioned phone service will bring the telephone back to thousands of New Zealanders whose hearing has forced them into isolation.   “So many Hearing impaired New Zealanders have lost a key part of their independence because they can no longer use the telephone.  At last, with captioned telephony, we hill have a phone service that is as close to a real-time telephone call as modern technology allows. We  take for granted our ability to use the telephone, but for so many, the phone
is off-limits because their hearing makes it impossible to use.  Just imagine not being able to call your family, not being able use the phone to make an appointment, and not even being able to call a taxi.  Now all that will change.  The NFD and others in the hearing disability sector have been working for some time to bring captioned  telephony to New Zealand.  This is world-leading technology and we are looking forward to working with the relay provider to ensure as many Hearing Impaired New Zealanders as possible can take advantage of it” said Carroll.

The Telephone Relay Service  already provides a text-based relay for the Hearing Impaired but it relies on the relay assistant typing what the other person is saying, resulting in time-lags and frequent frustration for both parties to the call.  With captioned telephony, the relay assistant will “re-voice” the conversation using voice recognition software, eliminating much of the delay. The service will also allow relay calls from cellphones, and follows the introduction last year of video relay which allows the Deaf community to talk to the relay assistant in sign language.

Congratulations are due to Tauranga City Council for becoming probably the first Council in New Zealand to decide to adopt an Age-Friendly Vision and to integrate a strategy in the Council Long Term Plan 2012-2022.  For some years now various individuals and community agencies in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty have promoted the relevance of the Age-Friendly Cities concepts for this high ageing region.  A Towards Tauranga Age-Friendly City Collaboration of 11 agencies submitted to the City Council Annual Plan seeking ‘A City For All Ages.’  Similar submissions were addressed to Western Bay of Plenty District Council and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. It was proposed that each Council allocate staffing resource to develop a strategy this year for inclusion in Council Long Term Plans. Many people took part and attended in support of the submission hearings.  “It is very heartening that the community voice was respected by the City Council,” said Carole Gordon, Convener of the collaborative effort.

The Global Age-Friendly Cities framework is promoted by the World Health Organization as a guide for Local Governments to respond to planning for population ageing. It seeks to adapt systems and policies to meet the independence needs of increasing numbers of mature and older people as the baby-boomer generation ages. “What is really interesting is that when improvements are made to suit elders, the outcomes produce social and economic benefit for all generations,” says Carole.  “While this is often hard to understand, we have to look ahead with a generous and not limited perspective, after all, this group will be largest set of consumers the world has ever known! Here in Tauranga the number of people 65+ will increase by 50% within the next ten years and is projected to reach nearly 32,000 by 2026.”

As well as the WHO Global Age-Friendly Cities programme, there are a number of other international initiatives to improve access in cities.  Recently for example, Avila Spain won the first European Commission Access City Award, and Charlotte North Carolina and Brazos Valley Council of Governments Texas (U.S.A.) won the Environmental Protection Agency “Building healthy Communities for Active Ageing Award”.  Singapore has created a “City for All Ages Project Office”, London’s Mayor promises an access legacy from Olympics/Paralympics 2012 and access improvement has been part of the games planning since 2004, and many cities across both the developed and developing world have access guides for seniors, people who are not as agile as they once were, or people with disabilities.  The reason? Populations across the world are ageing and there is an economic benefit to becoming age-friendly and improving access.

In February, the USA  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the winners of the fourth annual “Building Healthy Communities for Active Ageing Award”.  The principal goal of the Award program is to raise awareness across the US about healthy synergies that can be achieved when communities combine and implement the principles of smart growth with the concepts of active aging.  

What began as an initiative by the World Health Organization in 2007 has now trickled down to cities across the US, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and beyond. In its push for the continued creation of environments that foster social inclusion and social participation, WHO stresses that “Active ageing is a lifelong process, …[therefore] an age-friendly city is not just ‘elderly friendly.’

Smart growth principles include  communities designing places that increase mobility and improve quality of life. Neighborhoods that integrate homes with shops, services, and parks and recreational facilities allow residents—especially older adults—to pursue an interesting and active life without depending on a car.  Active aging takes place when elders regularly participate in structured and unstructured physical activities.  By 2030, the 65 and older population in the United States is expected to reach nearly 20 percent, or more than 70 million.  Communities can promote Active aging by implementing a diverse array of accessible physical activity programs or self-directed activities such as walking and biking to local parks and greenways.

The EPA Achievement Award winners are public sector entities or neighborhood or non-government organizations that demonstrate excellence in building healthy communities for active aging.  One of the 201 winners was the City of Charlotte, North Carolina.  In the last five years, Charlotte has built sixteen miles of greenways, 88 miles of bike facilities and 106 miles of sidewalks have been completed. By retrofitting dozens of streets and adding ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) ramps at intersections, the City has made improvements for pedestrians of all ages and abilities.  The other recipient was Brazos Valley Council of Governments, Texas. Brazos improved biking and walking facilities, developed a wheelchair accessible trail system at Wolf Penn Creek, and a LifeTrail™, a fitness circuit designed to meet the needs of persons of all abilities, amongst other things.

Meanwhile, Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Aging points out that those 50 and older represent a huge market.  ”While there’s bound to be some segmentation, certain values, principles, and social-economic forces are converging to the point where we can make some predictions for the market as a whole.”  These include growth of “green exercise” and green communities. “Hiking, trail walks, meditation gardens, labyrinths, cycling paths, gardening, and eco tourism will flourish going forward,” says Milner

 Sources: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The Annals of Leisure Research is seeking papers for a special issue that examines the inclusion and citizenship of people with disability in “cultural life” (recreation, leisure, the arts, sport, or tourism).  The purpose is to:

a)      clarify what the terms inclusion and citizenship mean in different cultures;

b)      to place inclusion and citizenship to ‘cultural life ‘(recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism) across discourses relating to economic, social and environmental contexts that affect people with disabilities participation; and

c)       to discuss the terms inclusion and citizenship from the ideological frameworks of government, researchers, providers of service or disability advocacy groups.

Submissions are sought from the consumer (demand), providers (supply) and coordination/regulation (government) sector perspectives. The guest editors invite interested researchers to contribute theoretical, methodological or empirical papers related to the theme of this Special Issue. The topics of potential papers include but are not limited to:

• The role of inclusion and citizenship in the construction of ‘cultural life’(recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism) environments and experiences;
• What is the impact of inclusion/exclusion on the person and their experiences?;
• The social and/or cultural construction of inclusion in ‘cultural life’(recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism) activities and experiences;
• The role of inclusion in the construction of cultural, sub cultural and personal identities of different societies;
• The role of inclusion in the construction and/or deconstruction of the intersection with gendered, ethnic and sexual identities within the experience of ‘cultural life’(recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism);
• How experiences of inclusion compare and contrast between different dimensions of disability (e.g. mobility, vision, hearing, cognitive, sensitivities etc.);
• The impact of inclusion and citizenship within space and place making

Important Dates:

• Abstract deadline: 30 June 2011 to Jerome(at)dal.ca
• Notification of acceptance of abstracts deadline: 1 August 2011
• Submission for double-blind reviewing process: 30 November2011
• Review Process Notification: 30 January  2012
• Special issue publication: June or December 2012

For submission guidelines and more, continue reading……………..

Submission Guidelines

1. In the first instance authors are invited to submit a 500 word abstract listen to meet with indicative of references for consideration for the special issue.
2. Electronic submission of the abstract should be sent by e-mail attachment to  Jerome(at)dal.ca
3. Authors will then be selected to complete a full paper based on their abstract for potential publication subject to the full double-blind review process as required by Annals of Leisure Research.
4. Abstracts and papers should be sent as Microsoft Word file attachments using APA sixth edition.
5. Articles will be 5000-6000 words in length including references using APA sixth edition.

All submissions will be anonymously reviewed by two independent assessors.

Co-editors

Simon Darcy PhD                                                  
Associate Professor Events, Sport and Tourism        
UTS Business School – Management                      
University of Technology, Sydney                           
PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007

Simon.Darcy (at) uts.edu.au     

Jerome Singleton

Professor Leisure Studies

School of Health and Human Performance

Dalhousie University

1459 Oxford Street , Halifax, N.S.

Jerome (at) dal.ca

 Preamble:

We reside within a global village, approximately 10 per cent of the world’s population or 650 million people(including about 200 million children) are living with some form of disability(United Nations, 2009).  The World Health Organization and the United Nations have recognized that people with disability have a right to access services from all areas of citizenship (Darcy & Taylor, 2009; Genoe & Singleton, 2009). In particular, the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), Article 30 recognises ‘cultural life’ as an important part of any person’s citizenship. As the United Nations’ outline, whether ‘cultural life’ is recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism it is the enriching part of people’s lives where they strive to express themselves away from the everyday reality of their lifestyle situation and other constraints (Barnes, Mercer, & Shakespeare, 1999). As Stebbins (2006) and others have argued, for some individuals and groups of people with disability, ‘cultural life’ (recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism )plays a far more important role as they have been denied active citizenship in employment. Cultural life(recreation, leisure, the arts, sport or tourism )has become the ‘serious’ focus of their existence (Patterson & Lobo, 2000; Shaw & Dawson, 2001; Stebbins, 2000). Yet, a great deal of research has focused on the medicalised benefits of sport and active recreation for people with disability due to lower levels of participation than the general population (e.g. Cooper et al., 1999; Darcy, Taylor, Murphy, & Lock, 2011). While a very important consideration, participation in ‘cultural life’ is more than sport and active recreation for prescribed therapeutic outcomes (Darcy, et al., 2011).

References

Barnes, C., Mercer, G., & Shakespeare, T. (1999). Culture, leisure and the media. In C. Barnes, G. Mercer & T. Shakespeare (Eds.), Exploring disability: a sociological introduction (pp. 182-210). Malden, Mass: Polity Press.

Cooper, R. A., Quatrano, L. A., Axelson, P. W., Harlan, W., Stineman, M., Franklin, B., . . . Chao, E. Y. S. (1999). Research on physical activity and health among people with disabilities: A consensus statement. Journal of rehabilitation research and development, 36(2), 142-154.

Darcy, S., & Taylor, T. (2009). Disability citizenship: An Australian human rights analysis of the cultural industries. Leisure Studies, 28(4), 419-441.

Darcy, S., Taylor, T., Murphy, A., & Lock, D. (2011). Getting Involved in Sport: The Participation and non-participation of people with disability in sport and active recreation. Canberra: Australian Sport Commission.

Genoe, R., & Singleton, J. F. (2009). World Demographics and Their Implications for Therapeutic Recreation. In N. Stumbo (Ed.), Professional Issues in Therapeutic Recreation On Competence and Outcomes. Champaign, Il: Sagamore.

Patterson, I., & Lobo, F. (2000). Developing a meaningful identity for people with disabilities through serious leisure activities. World leisure journal, 42(2), 41-51.

Shaw, S. M., & Dawson, D. (2001). Purposive Leisure: Examining Parental Discourses on Family Activities. Leisure Sciences, 23(4), 217 – 231.

Stebbins, R. A. (2000). Serious leisure for people with disabilities. In A. Sivan & H. Ruskin (Eds.), Leisure education, community development and populations with special needs. (pp. 101-108). Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing.

Stebbins, R. A. (2006). Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time: Transaction Pub.

United Nations. (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New York http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/convtexte.htm: United Nations General Assembly A/61/611 – 6 December 2006.

United Nations. (2009, 2 June 2009). Enable, from http://www.un.org/disabilities/

The Pacific Rim International Conference on Disabilities (Pac Rim) will this year include a number of themes in the realm of tourism.  These are:

• Best practice for inclusive and accessible tourism which includes destination, products, and services
• Accessible tourism best practices, information, guidelines, audits for tourism products
• Universal design (i.e., design which includes all people) for tourism, sport, and recreation, international accessibility standards, and technologies
• Community tourism as a means to reduce poverty and prevent disability or provide accessibility or services

The Pac Rim conference takes place April 18 and 19^th in Honolulu.   Pac Rim – run by the Centre on Disability Studies, University of Hawaii – has been widely recognized over the past 25 years as one of the most “diverse gatherings” in the world.   Each year the conference hews to its traditional areas which have bred much of the interdisciplinary research and educational advances of the last three decades. But each year new topics are introduced to foment discussion and change. The intent is to harness the tremendous synergy as generated by the intermingling of these diverse perspectives.  The event encourages and respects voices from “diverse” perspective across numerous areas, including: voices from persons representing all disability areas; experiences of family members and supporters across all disability areas; responsiveness to diverse cultural and language differences; evidence of researchers and academics studying disability; stories of persons providing powerful lessons; examples of program providers, natural supports and allies of persons with disabilities and; action plans to meet human and social needs in a globalized world.

UK companies have been urged by the CEO of People 1^st  – the sector skills council for the hospitality, leisure, tourism and travel industries – to ensure their services are “disability-friendly” and accessible ahead of the London Olympics and Paralympics 2012.  Brian Wisdom said that businesses would be short-sighted if they do not make moves to improve accessibility, as more than 20% of Britons have a disability.  The estimated annual purchasing power of people with disabilities in the UK is £80 billion.  BBC commentator and Paralympic gold medallist Marc Woods notes that there are simple steps businesses can take to welcome people with disabilities.  These include being friendly and respectful, because 66% of disabled people choose businesses renowned for good customer service and 83%  percent have taken their business to a more accessible competitor.

According to the London Organising Committee of the Games, thousands of applications to become Games Maker volunteers have been received from disabled people.  A new campaign to train 200,000 hospitality and tourism staff ahead of the Games has been launched by People 1st with backing from VisitEngland.  The WorldHost training programme includes learning modules on serving customers with disabilities. It covers topics such as knowing the right language to use and being aware of feelings, misconceptions and biases