"To Act = to perform / to take action"

Ceis Carraigin, Connaught, Ireland
female, age 32
single
Community Drama Facilitator
Speaks: English, Irish Gaelic
Joined Feb 23, 2004

more about Isolde C. »

ThisAbility: a Care2 group to fill a gap!

I noticed when I first set up my Care2 page that there was no option for "disability" or "accessibility" in the list of supported causes.  This is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

Disability and people with disabilities are massively unrepresented and largely invisible in mainstream culture and media, except occasionally as a token or cypher.  This is how it has been in the past and present for many disenfranchised groups.

Yet it is vital that a fair and inclusive society embraces physical, sensory and mental diversity: let us not forget that Hitler's project of eugenics included wiping out people with disabilities! (as well as Jews, communists, gay people, gypsies and many others).

In particular, an on-line community resource like Care2 should include people with disabilities.  People with disabilities overwhelmingly state that access to the internet has vastly improved their quality of life - and that's with a huge portion of the internet remaining INaccessible to people (like myself) with visual impairment (or mobility impairments).
But I do not wish to proselitise! (did I speel that right?!).  I have set up a Care2 group called ThisAbility: http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/ThisAbility
It is open to people of all abilities who are interested in  disability-related issues; access, identity, culture, sharing experience, resources, information...
The group was founded by myself and Felix Ford; we come from a position of the social model of disability.  This means an approach which believes that disability is a function of society's lack of inclusion and accessibility for people with different physical, sensory and mental needs.  The social model was created in response to the medical model, which states that disability is the result of some physical deficit or deformity or other abnormality on the part of the person with disabilities.