Tag Archives: Blind/Visually Impaired

Health + Ability

Armenia Feature | Blind & Visually Impaired

Raising the Voices of the Visually Impaired in Armenia

As the Internet has created new channels for the inclusion of marginalized communities, people with disabilities in particular have looked to the technology as a chance to discover and create new, accessible labor and creative opportunities. In Armenia, government agencies and international NGOs have worked together to promote information literacy and use among blind and visually impaired Armenians. One new program, Radio MENQ, has bridged the technical with the creative, offering blind and visually impaired people the chance to work as presenters and sound technicians for an internet radio station focused on issues and interests of relevance to the visually impaired community. Global Voices sat down with two of the project’s leaders to discuss the history and future of Radio MENQ and how opportunities like the station help combat pervasive unemployment and marginalization in the community.

Read:
“How is Online Radio Helping to Empower Visually Impaired People in Armenia?” (Global Voices)

(Image Credit: via Global Voices)

Age, Health + Ability

U.S. Feature | People with Disabilities

The New Segregation

Long-term care for people with chronic illnesses and certain physical and cognitive disabilities has become an important civil rights battle ground over the last two decades. While media attention has focused on government responses to civil rights issues including anti-LGBT legislation and racial inequalities in the criminal justice system, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened more than 50 investigations into what it reports has been the segregation of people with chronic illnesses and disabilities in nursing facilities. Effectively institutionalizing people with disabilities, nursing facilities have detached an estimated 250,000 from economic opportunity and social life, despite a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that people with disabilities should only be placed in nursing facilities if medically necessary. The New York Times analyzes the push for home-based care and the DOJ’s active investigations into violations of protections secured under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision.

Read:
“South Dakota Wrongly Puts Thousands in Nursing Homes, Government Says” (The New York Times)

Additional:
“Feds: Relying On Nursing Homes For Those With Disabilities Not OK” (Disability Scoop)
Letter on results of investigation into South Dakota’s healthcare practices (U.S. Department of Justice)
“Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin Releases Report Showing ADA’s Promise of Integration is Not Being Met for Many Americans with Disabilities” (U.S. Senate press HELP release, July 2013)

(Image Credit: Thinkstock, via Disability Scoop)

Health + Ability

U.S. News | Blind

Accessibility programming at U.S. museums extends appreciation of the visual arts to blind individuals
  • The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and other major art museums offer programming allowing visitors to touch selected works or work replicas.
  • Such programming allows for the more individualized aesthetic appreciation enjoyed by those without visual impairment, and in museums where tactile engagement is forbidden, specialized tours offer detailed descriptions of works to visitors.
  • Museum professionals note the growth in accessibility programming since the 1970s, with the introduction of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1980 spurring cultural institutions to work to create inclusive experiences across the ability spectrum.

“I don’t think it’s red tape-wise such a difficult thing to do. … And you can certainly use the argument, ‘Look at all these other museums.’ … I think that the institutions that don’t have something in place are scrambling because they’re thinking, ‘Here we are 25 years [after the ADA], we’d better get going on this.’ ”

Read the full story at the Washington Post.

(Image Credit: Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

Gender, Health + Ability
Redesigned U.S. $10 bill to feature woman historical figure and new tactility
  • The currency redesign will be the first to include a female figure on a major U.S. bill denomination.
  • The Treasury Secretary has called on the public to offer its opinions on who should grace the bill using the hashtag #TheNew10, with the only stipulations being that the figure not be alive and should represent American democracy.
  • The redesigned bill will debut in 2020 and will also be the first to include tactile features so as to be distinguishable to blind people.

“We have only made changes to the faces on our currency a few times since bills were first put into circulation, and I’m proud that the new 10 will be the first bill in more than a century to feature the portrait of a woman.”

More on this story at CNN.