How San Francisco Is Making Small Businesses More Accessible

Since 1995, Pragnachaksu has paved a path to empowerment for blind women in India, offering academic and vocational classes in addition to braille instruction. The school provides free housing and tuition for girls looking for primary and secondary education, a service that is usually unavailable to the country's eight million blind citizens, and to visually impaired women in particular.

Companies like Good Karma allow people with autism to use apps to communicate through pictures and icons. Yet, the apps require users to do a lot of complicated movements, some of who may not have that mobility. However, brain interference technology, could be the answer. Through the technology “a mere thought can get a computer to speak a word or phrase .”

In 2016, Kenya's government instituted a broadcast programming code that required reporting programs to include sign language interpretation. Through this code, people with hearing impairment have access to news and information to be well-informed and civically engaged.

Crowdsourcing data allows developers to help those with limited mobility find accessible routes. The AccessMap Seattle project, in collaboration with the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology at the University of Washington and OpenStreetMap, has tested and is improving a map where users can find and edit information about the elevation of rotes, sidewalks, and crosswalks to serve those who are challenged with their mobility.

Although Indonesia is making efforts to improve disability rights, progress is slow. In the meantime, a group called Economic Empowerment for Entrepreneurs with Disability (EEED) was formed in partnership with the British Council’s DICE (Developing Inclusive Creative Economies) program. Participants in the program learn entrepreneurial skills by creating their own social enterprise, supplemented by lessons in things like marketing and management. This helps those in Indonesia with disabilities become socioeconomically independent and able to envision a develop a meaningful vision of the future.

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down school buildings and led to many people working from home in New York City, a city child care program was launched to give children a place to go while they were learning from home. However, the program failed to accommodate children with disabilities who required the assistance of a paraprofessional. After realizing the gap in care, the city is now working to increase access.

A team of sign language interpreters across Nigeria translated into indigenous Nigerian sign language, the internationally acclaimed book “My Hero is You” which helps children, their parents and caregivers understand and answer questions about the coronavirus. With the signing of this book into an indigenous Nigerian sign language, deaf signers can now reach out to their communities. They teach them in the sign language they understand, using local words to explain how the virus came to be and how to prevent its spread and protect their communities.

The ReelAbilities Film Festival promotes awareness and increases the representation of people with disabilities in movies. The festival, which has expanded to several cities across the country, shows award-winning films by and about people with disabilities and also hosts post-screening discussions to bring the community together to celebrate diversity.

The International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards trains employees in the tourism industry to become autism certified, ensuring they know how to care for neurodivergent youth and their families when they’re at places like restaurants or theme parks. Several of these businesses have practices in place like offering noise-canceling headphones, access to quiet rooms or even hosting autism awareness weekends, helping to make the city the first Autism Certified City in the world.

The Alliance Center for Independence (ACI) started working with people who have disabilities to create better disaster preparedness measures that consider disabilities, ensuring support and shelter are accessible to anyone and everyone. ACI held an overnight shelter simulation exercise that allowed them to practice each step of an emergency shelter response with people who have disabilities to identify any areas that could be improved. These simulations have become a model for other counties across the state, inspiring more shelters to make improvements to their accessibility.