It’s Disability Awareness Week on the UK’s first step-free art trail; a triumph for accessibility and inclusion in the arts world. Evenbreak is proud to be sponsoring one of the Morphs and we are delighted with the positive response so far.
The art trail was launched by Whizz-Kidz, the UK’s leading charity for young wheelchair users. Their vision is a society in which every young wheelchair user is mobile, enabled, and included. Many young people struggle to participate equally in cultural events and social activities due to poor accessibility and inclusion; the Morph trail is a testament that this does not have to be the case.
We would like to share with our readers the fantastic Wheelchair Skills College, an organisation formed by Pete Donnolly which aims to build the confidence and independence of other wheelchair users. The Wheelchair Skills College embodies ‘Nothing about us, without us’ and is driven by a lived experience approach from the founder, a wheelchair user for 16 years.
Pete Donnolly, CEO and founder: “Moving around using a wheelchair can feel like you are constantly facing barriers stopping you getting places. Having the skills to use any new piece of equipment is essential and wheelchairs are no different. It’s often seen as an end solution in that people get given a wheelchair and that is the answer. But there are so many things that people need to know about using a wheelchair. I often think of the irony that the wheelchair is seen as a symbol of disability when it’s actually one of the most powerful tools to empower those who need it.”
The Wheelchair Skills College provides educational videos on its website, as well as training in person in schools. The video resources have a range of skill levels including introduction, beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert.
Katy Kavaliunas, Marketing Coordinator at Evenbreak, commented “For me, being a wheelchair user has been hard mentally and emotionally. Having my independence taken away from me was really difficult to come to terms with. It is amazing that something like this exists; I only wish I had found out about it sooner.”
There is still a long way to go in terms of creating an accessible society, as this recent news shows, but events such as Morph’s art trail are inspiring a roll in the right direction, raising awareness of the need for better access and inclusion for wheelchair users.
