[OSList] Supporting the blind at an open space event

Thu Jan 24 14:42:06 PST 2013

I have done an Open Space for an indigenous organization on disability.  We had about 20 people in the room with all kinds of abilities and limitations ranging from mobility issues to deafness to blindness to cognitive impairment, to various degrees of paralysis or complete lacking of limbs altogether.  

There was no way I could meet every need, but the group itself was completely capable of meeting every need.  We operated by Christina Baldwin's principle of "ask for what you need and offer what you can"  The deaf woman read out the posters for the blind man.  The quadriplegic offered to zoom around the inside of the circle in her wheelchair with paper and markers on her tray offering them to those who couldn't get up.   Those who couldn't write spoke their topics to those who could.  It worked great and everyone loved it.  All the sessions met and they made it work.

So…there you go.

C

On 2013-01-24, at 1:54 PM, Niels Schuddeboom wrote:

> Harold,
> I would like to second Harrison's reply. I am not blind, but I do have a physical disability and I recognize that it's most natural to have a support structure emerging from the group itself. As a facilitator you can have a positive influence in shaping a culture of what the Dutch started to call 'Durf te vragen' = Dare to ask. In my experience: the more you take special measures with the focus on people with a disability, the more you have the risk of getting 'outsiders'. Good luck!
> 
> Niels
> @shakingtree
> 
> PS. What I do in 2013, thanks to the facilitation world: http://checkthis.com/qqnc
> 
> 2013/1/22 Harold Shinsato <harold at shinsato.com>
> Thank you Michael & Harrison,
> 
> The need for the American Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 reflected a need for a change in consciousness to support those with disabilities. Despite a professional requirement to understand and look at Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act when government contracts for software companies started to be directly impacted in 1998 because of the changes to that law to support digital accessibility, I still felt an inner "humbug" when I saw most of the best parking spaces left empty in public parking lots because they were reserved for the handicapped.
> 
> The movie "Music Within" helped me understand. It's the true story of Richard Pimentel who lost his hearing in Vietnam and became an       activist for the ADA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Within. This movie depicted directly something you said, Harrison, when they showed how someone with cerebral palsy became the center of attention in a restaurant because there were no facilities to make it possible for him to come into the restaurant himself, and he had to be personally carried up the stairs. What was worse was the depiction of how his disability made him a target of discrimination.
> 
> I really appreciate both having the faith, as a facilitator, that those without eyesight will be able to get their needs met and the community will support them and work it out. Yet I do wonder if there is also a need as an event organizer to do something to make it possible for those with handicaps to navigate the event without the need for them to be highlighted or stand out. It might be a bit confrontational to hear this - but even our community has challenges supporting the handicapped. There were no elevators or ramps at WOSonOS 2011 in Berlin to over half of the session locations, which made those with mobility challenges unable to attend those sessions.
> 
> Michael, several of your suggestions seemed like they would help support the sight impaired. It might be a little extra work, but having someone transcribe the session announcements and times would help the blind, but would have other benefits. I've heard reports at some of my open space events that accessibility to the schedule wall was an issue especially right after the morning sessions are announced and posted. I've been thinking getting a larger wall would support that, but I also specifically heard that the event was overwhelming to those with social anxiety. I can't help but think having a way to find sessions by going to a website could support that - and enable a lot of the technology that is available now for the sight impaired.
> 
>     Harold
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/21/13 2:56 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>> I have never done an Open Space for Blind People… but I have done many OS’s with some or many blind people. And as near as I could tell, they did just fine. Their own coping skills worked, and the community pitched in (with a nice subtlety) – so I never saw or heard of a problem. But I did get one comment from a person of challenged vision… who thanked me for not making him a special, stand out person… just one more people. Needless to say it was not me doing/not doing anything. But you get the drift. Unless somebody has suddenly gone blind, they do make it in the world, and with the light touch of a caring community (and what else do you have in OS?), everything seemed to work out just fine.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Harrison
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Harrison Owen
>> 
>> 7808 River Falls Dr.
>> 
>> Potomac, MD 20854
>> 
>> USA
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
>> 
>> Camden, Maine 04843
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Phone 301-365-2093
>> 
>> (summer)  207-763-3261
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> www.openspaceworld.com
>> 
>> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
>> 
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
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>>  
>> 
>> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Harold Shinsato
>> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 12:12 AM
>> To: OSLIST
>> Subject: [OSList] Supporting the blind at an open space event
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Some friends in Missoula Montana are holding an open space event about digital accessibility March 9 this year. http://accessibilitycampmissoula.org/
>> 
>> Looking over the records I found fewer posts about this than I expected. I saw posts about supporting 1 blind person, but they will have at least seven and I don't think they'll have enough volunteers to support one helper each. So they are thinking about some kind of ipad readers around the session postings.
>> 
>> How has the community here provided accessibility to the blind, especially for the schedule wall?
>> 
>>     Thanks in Advance!
>>     Harold
>> 
>> -- 
>> Harold Shinsato
>> harold at shinsato.com
>> http://shinsato.com
>> twitter: @hajush
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Harold Shinsato
> harold at shinsato.com
> http://shinsato.com
> twitter: @hajush
> 
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