AODA Alliance
May 6, 2016
SUMMARY
Here is the latest on progress on the AODA Alliance’s blitz to get Ontario MPPs to help us beef up the sluggish implementation and enforcement of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. We also want to share ways you can quickly and easily help us with this campaign.
1. Log In to Citizens with Disabilities Ontario’s May 12 8 pm Webinar on How to Help Press Ontario MPPs to Beef Up the AODA’s Implementation and Enforcement
Want to learn how you can help our Ontario accessibility blitz? Want to hear from others who are devoting volunteer energy to this campaign?
On Thursday, May 12, 2016 from 8 to 9 pm Eastern, please log in and join in the webinar that Citizens with Disabilities Ontario (CWDO) is organizing. That webinar will give you great tips on how to help us press members of the Ontario Legislature to strengthen the Wynne Government’s sluggish implementation and enforcement of the AODA. CWDO has invited AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky to present at this webinar.
We are delighted that so many community disability organizations are partners in our non-partisan campaign for accessibility in Ontario, and that CWDO is one of them. Join this event. Learn how to take part in the “Picture Our Barriers” blitz.
You don’t need a password to take part. You do not need to RSVP in advance. To log into this webinar, just before 8 pm on May 12, 2016, you can go to the CWDO website home page or right to the virtual auditorium for the webinar or to the CWDO instructions for how to join its webinar.
2. Get Started on our Twitter Blitz, Even If You’ve Never Tried Before!
Our accessibility campaign on Twitter is already underway. Even if you have no experience with Twitter, you can help out, without needing to take much time to learn.
Why not visit the Twitter home page, and do a search on #AODAfail. You don’t need a Twitter name or account to do this. You can do this even if you know nothing about Twitter and have never before tried it.
Take a look at the troubling range of different accessibility barriers that our supporters around Ontario have found, and have reported to the world on Twitter, using the search term #AODAfail! See how many people have retweeted these, or shared them with their Facebook friends.
How about a school in Toronto that put an automatic door opener on a bathroom door—but the button is only inside the bathroom. There is no automatic door opener on the door outside the bathroom. How about a newly-renovated university building that has a Braille sign as part of the sign for a help desk – but it is posted eight feet high, far too high for a Braille reader to find, reach and read. One creative individual recorded a video of different barriers at a different university campus.
Tweets in this blitz don’t just describe barriers facing people with mobility disabilities or vision loss. There are creative tweets about all different kinds of barriers, facing people with a range of different kinds of disabilities.
You don’t need to have a picture or video. Some tweets just use a few words to describe a policy or practice that is creating a barrier against people with disabilities.
As an example of sharing a barrier that someone else broadcast on Twitter, here is a tweet by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky. It forwarded to Liberal MPP Jeff Leal a tweet that the Association of Design Professionals for Accessibility (ADPA) had earlier tweeted. That earlier tweet depicts an obvious barrier in a restaurant bathroom
@David Lepofsky: @JeffLeal_MPP This shows U must Beef up #accessibility law implementation&enforcement #AODAfail quoting ADP for Accessibility: #Badexample: Restaurant WC Grad bar 2 & toilet paper 2 far from toilet, transfer space blocked by garbage #AODAfail https://t.co/J2Y9k0tYYt
In fact, you don’t need to go out and find any new barriers yourself, even though it is great if you do so. If you go onto Twitter, search on “#AODAfail” you will see barriers that others have found. You can simply retweet these. It is especially good if you can retweet tweets that others have addressed to Ontario MPPs. There are lots of these for you to find and retweet. It is quick and easy. Just search on the term “AODAfail”.
To get started, everything you need is available on our website’s page setting out resources for our “Picture Our Barriers” campaign. There you can find an action kit, and a list of all Ontario MPPs, and their email addresses and Twitter handles.
Please spread the word about this blitz. Get others to help us.
Let us know what you can do. Write us at aodafeedback@gmail.com
You can always send your feedback to us on any AODA and accessibility issue at aodafeedback@gmail.com
To sign up for, or unsubscribe from AODA Alliance e-mail updates, write to: aodafeedback@gmail.com
We encourage you to use the Government’s toll-free number for reporting AODA violations. We fought long and hard to get the Government to promise this, and later to deliver on that promise. If you encounter any accessibility problems at any large retail establishments, it will be especially important to report them to the Government via that toll-free number. Call 1-866-515-2025.
Please pass on our email Updates to your family and friends.
Why not subscribe to the AODA Alliance’s YouTube channel, so you can get immediate alerts when we post new videos on our accessibility campaign.
Please “like” our Facebook page and share our updates.
Follow us on Twitter. Get others to follow us. And please re-tweet our tweets!! @AODAAlliance
Learn all about our campaign for a fully accessible Ontario by visiting our website.