Around the world today, the International Day of People with Disability celebrates the contribution they make to society, and encourages us all to become aware of the issues they face.
This year’s theme is the leadership and participation of people with disability toward an inclusive, accessible, and sustainable post-COVID-19 world.
“Every person has the opportunity to live a happy and fulfilling life,” Emma Davidson, ACT Minister for Disability, said in the Legislative Assembly yesterday. “So, let’s all celebrate I-Day … and reaffirm this by celebrating the rights and the talents and the experience of Canberrans with disability and the incredible contributions they make to the diversity and richness of our community.
“The pandemic has thrown at us so many challenges, and many of us radically changed our ways of living. As we emerge into a post-COVID world, let’s take what we’ve learned, add a bit of radical love, and ensure that we build back better and more inclusive than before.”
Speaking to Canberra Daily earlier in the week, Ms Davidson paid tribute to individual advocates like Dougie Herd, Renee Heaton, and Craig Wallace, and to organisations like ADACAS (the ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy Service) and Advocacy for Inclusion.
“We have such an engaged and informed disability community with so many great leaders … not just within the disability community, but within the broader Canberra community, as well,” she said.
They stood their ground to ensure reforms to the NDIS would not disadvantage people with disabilities; campaigned for priority vaccinations for people with disabilities; and advised on the ban on single-use plastics and the future of the public transport network.
During the pandemic, businesses and workplaces adopted more disability-friendly practices: working from home or online, home delivery and click-and-collect, and Auslan interpreters at daily press conferences. In fact, Ms Davidson told her Assembly colleagues, exclusion and isolation the wider community faced during lockdown were similar to some everyday experiences of people with disability.
“Suddenly, everyone was experiencing exclusion from everyday activities and isolation from community, work, and family, and difficulty accessing secure employment, services, and everyday necessities. For people without disabilities, experience should be motivating. We need to take these experiences and translate them into action to ensure that no one should feel excluded or isolated because of disability.”
Ms Davidson said the government had made great progress in listening better to people with disability about what they need, and responding to the challenges the health emergency presented.
She urged the government and the community not to lose traction, but “to create a more inclusive post-COVID world, where the reasonable adjustments and accommodations made by employers, businesses, and services are accepted as not only mainstream practice, but also the norm”.
Physical and mental diversity makes us stronger as a community, Ms Davidson told CW: it gives us a greater range of perspectives, and more creativity and adaptability – which we will need to help the community recover from COIVD.
“We [should] take pride in the diversity of ways that human bodies and minds work, and see that as a strength, and as a normal part of the human condition, rather than just as something that has to be overcome or accommodated or accepted,” she said.
Read more:
- Fun and learning for International Day of People with Disability
- Federal disability strategy welcome, but NDIS concerns remain
- COVID-19 challenging for people with disability
- ACT Government wants to make a better Canberra for people with disabilities
- Opinion: Respect and make space for disability leadership
