Archive for the ‘People with Disabilities’ Category

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Building relationships – for the win

Tuesday, December 25th, 2012

As a business person you can make a decision early on in your business life cycle whether you are going to offer a product or service to whoever wants it or whether you and your customers/clients have a mutually beneficial relationship.

They are not the same. Perhaps in the olden days when we had Mom and Pop stores they were. But with the advent of major marketing players the mutually beneficial went out of the window. Never to be seen again. Or at least not for a while.

But it’s not only your super stores, super manufacturers, super suppliers of stuff that are starting to realise that their customers want to be heard, taken note of. Smaller organisations including non-profits also need to play by the same rules.

Take for instance concert halls and philharmonic orchestras. In the past many of these organisations have delivered whatever the concert master/director decided was good for the public. And in fact many still do. It’s a kind of dictatorial rule of-and-by ‘good taste’. If you don’t like classical music then get lost. And that attitude kind of translates into all contact with the public. Whether it’s the ticket office or ushers in the concert hall, the public gets treated as if they were the servants.

Organisations who are looking after their customers/clients/audiences and building true relationships are making it happen whatever the economic climate is.

 

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

This article by a blogger shows how an organisation, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, reacted to a customer’s complaint about wheelchair accessibility. They worked incredibly hard to revise their attitude towards their customers. It’s worth remembering that the customer is part of the equation of every successful business venture, whether for profit or not.

So considering this success story, an irritating experience of another kind showed how not to do business. After trying unsuccessfully to buy a book from a website in Spain, Santana Books, with a UK credit card, another attempt with a Spanish card which was successful but did not deliver the eBook, I sent an irritated comment on the contact page complaining about the sites non-usability.

I didn’t hear back from them for over a week. And finally received email notification that my eBook was now available for download. Why it should take so long is another question of course. Surely it could have been automated? At the same time I received another email advising that I would receive a refund as I had sent in such a rude comment.  Not what I had expected or wanted. “How can we improve our website’ would have been more appropriate.

Needless to say, there is no way I will buy any of their other books. Not because the books are not worth buying but because the shopping experience is just too painful.  Perhaps one disgruntled customer is not a big deal. Perhaps it is. But one disabled customer managed to get a revised attitude for a concert hall’s accessibility policies. And wrote a glowing report about it.

And isn’t that how it should be?

A mutually beneficial relationship.

Posted in Marketing, People Stuff, People with Disabilities | No Comments »

Technology joins us together

Friday, November 9th, 2012

Remembrance Day: November 11.

You can roll your eyes and groan at how technology has disturbed our lives. When my kids visit they spend more time on their iPhones than talking to us. Easy access to technology can be really disruptive. But then you come across an example of the good side and you know that like everything in this world there is a flip side.

A really touching blog post by a writer whom I follow made me reflect on how great technology can be. Dave is disabled and a wheelchair user. And he is Canadian, at the moment working in the UK. He wrote about a chance meeting and discussion he had about war graves in the UK. And yes, weird topic. But he had discussed with some locals about a nearby graveyard honouring fallen soldiers during World Wars. And Dave’s father had served in the second world war for the Canadian Air Force.

On Remembrance day, observed on November 11,  he and his partner wanted to visit the graveyard but couldn’t find the details online. So he wrote a blog post about his experience and called on his readers for help. And there it was. Details of websites and info readily provided by some of his blog readers.

I’m totally against war myself. I tend to think it’s a bunch of politicians following their power kicks. At the end of the day I have seen Brits get on with Germans, I’m German and I married a Brit.., (so World War II?), Vietnamese and Americans get on (Vietnamese War?) and Japanese and Americans? (Word War II?) and I’m sure I could recite a huge long list.

But as much as I am against war, I am fully in support of those people who get sent out to make those wars happen. They are not to blame. And I am for fully supporting veterans in all and any way that may be necessary.

So I sympathised with Dave and his wishing to visit graves of war heroes. And so it was really touching to see the response to his request for help to find the memorial graveyard. He got exactly what he was looking for. It’s wonderful see the best of people like that. More often we see the nasties, the trolls. And I suppose it is because they make the loudest and nastiest noise. But then you see how our internet community can do the good stuff too and you know it’s good after all.

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities, Tech stuff for amateurs | No Comments »

World Down Syndrome Day on March 21

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Down Syndrome girl at Hold the Future, Hanoi

Wednesday March 21 2012 marks World Down Syndrome Day. And it made me remember my year in Hanoi, Vietnam working at Hold the Future as a VSO volunteer. We had many Down Syndrome young people living and working at the Center. They were the most loving and wonderful people and provided me with many fond memories.

Hold the Future offers vocational training and handicraft production work. Most of the time there are between 30 to 50 young people working there. It’s not great pay because the products are sold quite cheaply to remain competitive with other handicraft producers.

But the Center provides accommodation, all meals and a chance for young people to work for their own livelihood. The young people often work right through the week, including week-ends. There is the odd public holiday and two weeks off over the oriental New Year. But on the whole they work long hours.

The training is also over a long period. At least 6 months of repetitive learning processes might stop most people from enjoying this kind of work. For the young people at Hold the Future it’s something they love doing. Being able to support themselves is a dream come true.

In particular the rolled paper decorated greeting cards and rolled paper small jewellery containers were the favourite products to make. Of course rolling paper very tightly into small balls isn’t everybody’s idea of great fun. But for the Down Syndrome members at the Center they loved it. They were good at it and enjoyed their work.

And friendly and smiling faces most of the time. Of course they weren’t immune to unhappiness. But the Down Syndrome people were much readier to let go and smile again than most people I’ve come across. I loved visiting with them and sitting next to them at meal time or chatting to them via an interpreter. Never did get my head around Vietnamese. Fond memories indeed.

Thinking of many lovely Down Syndrome people today on their special celebratory day.

Posted in Hold the Future, People with Disabilities, Vietnam, VSO | 1 Comment »

What would you change about yourself?

Saturday, March 3rd, 2012

A blog I follow mentioned this link to a documentary. The question asked to intellectually disabled people was whether they would change anything about themselves. The answers were surprising.

What do you think somebody would say asked this question? Somebody with Down’s Syndrome for instance who has struggled all his life to be recognised as a person rather than some freak of nature. What would you think this person would want to change about themselves?

Get more intellectual capacity? Be clever?

Many of the people who got the chance to answer this question wished themselves to be nicer people! Sitting in a wheelchair would you think that ‘being nicer to people’ would be something you would want to change?

Shouldn’t that get us thinking about disability? Isn’t our reaction one of pity towards people with disabilities? We feel sorry for folk in wheelchairs. We think they have something major missing in their lives if they can’t walk like we do.

We disregard people who speak slowly and appear to us to have primitive thinking processes. We look down on people who couldn’t cope with the school system. Or people who can’t look after themselves without help.

Perhaps, people with disabilities don’t want to be pitied. Maybe they are happy with what they got given in life. It’s our attitude that needs changing.

Every life has value. Every person can enrich another person’s life. In whatever way. There are no prescriptions, no rules that determine how we should enjoy this life. It’s up to us.

So what would you change about yourself? And what do you think about disabled people? Do you pity and cross the road to try and avoid them or do you see them as people who could enrich your own life experience?

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Courage in the line of fire

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Oscar Pistorius - the Blade Runner. Click on pic to enlarge.

Isn’t that what they used to say in the olden days? It refers back to standing your ground when you were being shot at by enemy troops. Or your own ones I suppose nowadays… It always involved amazing amounts of courage and determination in the face of huge odds.

It’s what disabled people have to live with on a daily basis. The world is not designed as yet for people with disabilities. It will change. It’s all a matter of quantity. A few people won’t make a difference but many will. And the numbers of disabled people are growing. Wars are maiming soldiers and land mines are damaging limbs and minds of ordinary people.

And then there is the rubbish we put into our bodies. I’m sure that makes a difference to our babies. The excessive hormones in chicken and beef. The insecticides on veg, the affluent in our water, the garbage we pump into our air and the nuclear fall-out amongst many things all add to the numbers of disabled people coming into our world. Or becoming disabled during their life times.

Then there are the growing numbers of old people who can’t hear, see or walk that well and who often need wheels to get them around.

Eventually our world will have to take note and make provision for all people whether disabled or not and treat everybody the same by offering an accessible space as a matter of course.

Still, now in the year 2012, disabled people have to have courage in the line of fire to cope with the hurdles our society puts in their way.

So this picture, somebody emailed me, has led me to write this praise to courage. Apologies for the copyright infringement. I’m bound to be guilty as I have no idea whom to give credit to for the pic. It’s probably sponsored by BT though… Being the cynic as ever.

Never mind the BT sponsorship. The guy in the photo is somebody I admire in any case. Oscar Pistorius, South Africa’s hope for a medal in both the able athlete Olympics in London as well as the Paralympics. 400m sprint. The blade runner.

And he is teaching this cutey of a little tike how to use blades to be able to run. The determination on her face speaks volumes. And the pleasure and happiness on his face of being able to pass on the thrill of mobility to another ‘different’ able person is clear for all to see.

Courage in the line of fire. A perfect picture to represent the essence of this saying. Brings tears to my eyes, it does.

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities | No Comments »

Disability is about different abilities

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

There’s a blog I follow written by a disabled person. And every now and then I want to unsubscribe because his posts are more often than not tirades at the able bodied world and why it’s not taking more notice and making more allowances to the disabled.

Then I don’t unsubscribe because I have to remind myself that I have no idea how it must be to move around in this world in a wheelchair. And furthermore I have no idea what it must be like to be physically disabled but not intellectually and yet be treated as a moron just because you are in a wheelchair.

And it constantly surprises me over and over again how people are unable to see differences as a good thing rather than as an indictment. Something to feel sorry for, disdain, dislike and even be scared of seems to be the reaction. Fear of the unknown and rubbish like that is thrown about when trying to find excuses for bad behaviour towards disabled people.

So it always brings tears to my eyes when I come across somebody most definitely disabled but who has taken an ability they have and made a glorious something out of it. Never mind that he as a physically disabled person has the courage to stand on stage. In the olden times somebody like this would have surely been on stage too. But in circuses or freak shows.

Yet Thomas Quasthoff has taken the concept of different abilities to a new level. He became a concert soloist developing his voice into an instrument to make everybody forget his disability. And what a beautiful voice he has. I came across his name because he has decided to retire from performances. Singing placed too much strain on his body, his publicist says. I’m not surprised. Concert singing is equivalent to marathon running I should imagine in terms of the energy that has to go into the delivery.

So treat yourself to a rendition of Moon River sung by this remarkable man with different abilities.

Or watch it here.

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities | No Comments »

One week left in Vietnam

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Hanoi! Motor bike ready outfit!

Just over two years ago I landed in Hanoi as a VSO volunteer. It was my first visit to Asia, never mind South East Asia. What an adventure it has proved to be. Having met many volunteers from other organisations I must say compliment VSO on their exceptional preparation and induction programmes which they put their volunteers through. Added to that excellent in country support and I felt myself lucky to be part of this organisation. Well done VSO.

The year in Hanoi had it’s ups and downs. Learning how to deal with the Asian culture takes time and effort and many misunderstandings later but eventually it sinks in. As for the traffic! That is something that I couldn’t come to terms with. I managed to cope eventually but that is as far as it got.

Hau, my favourite artisan at Hope Center.

Relocating to Hue was a great move. The smaller city was more comfortable for me and easier to negotiate. I was fortunate to have a great boss lady and a fabulous center to work at. Such amazing people. Never mind a disability or a tough background as a disadvantaged person the staff and artisans at the Hope Center are just wonderful.

What also helped was the family joining me on this adventure. It gave me huge respect for people who travel and work in outlying areas and countries all on their own. It’s tough. You don’t know the language, you are trying to adapt to foreign cultures and you have no support systems. Very very tough. And very brave of people to manage that. I met a few VSO volunteers who did their own thing in remote areas of Vietnam. Huge respect for them!

What will I take with me? I’m not as brave as I thought. It’s been quite tough in parts. The language defeated me. I love the sound of it but just couldn’t get my tongue to get those special sounds to be anywhere near what they should be. After many months of struggle I gave up. Probably shouldn’t have. But it’s difficult to carry on with something so difficult when you know you are going to leave again.

The language barrier ment that I couldn’t move as freely as I would have liked to. It also made it difficult to make friends with some people such as my boss lady in Hue. What a fabulous woman. Very special. But we also had to work through an interpreter. Regrettably interpreters in Hue don’t know how to interpret. So it ended up being a chat show between the interpreter and the boss leaving me out of the loop. And I saw many instances of this same problem. Somehow they haven’t learnt that it’s not a chatfest amongst each other. In the end I would sit there and day dream about other stuff while they got on with discussing the weather, babies or whatever else they felt like.

Hue. Ancestor shrine.

But on the whole it was a very good time. Interesting cultural differences. Loved the belief in spirits, karma and ancestor worship. It’s given the people a stoic approach to hardship that was kind of refreshing. The developed world people do so bitch and moan when the slightest thing goes wrong. Here it’s a matter of shrugging and getting on with it.

I loved the sharing aspect of this nation. Celebrations are always accompanied by food and drink. And the sharing is open and welcoming. Even just popping in for a visit will mean instant tea served and somebody will rush out to get biscuits or food to ensure visitors are welcomed. During Tet (the oriental new year) people sat in their thick jackets with doors wide open to ensure people felt encouraged to visit. And it’s a veritable tide of motor bikes with red and gold wrapped presents visiting each other to wish happiness, good luck and health.

Once outside of Hanoi the true people emerged. Hanoi can be very cold towards foreigners. Not so the people of the smaller cities such as Hue. Always ready with a smile, a wave, a greeting and ready to make contact. And some truly outrageous things sometimes. My son-in-law was ‘accosted’ by a granny who wanted a lift on the back of his motor bike. Just like that. He took her as far as he could and it ended up in an argument for a while when he wanted to turn left and her way was going right.

On the other hand prejudices are still there and some of the older generation were not that willing to have visitors. My Hanoi interpreter’s parents didn’t want to meet me. They were worried that their town would think badly of them if they had a foreigner step into their house.

In fact prejudices and old-fashioned habits abound. A baby is taken out of the house on the first trip to having vaccination shots with chopsticks wrapped in tissue to keep the bad spirits away. And paper is burnt, flowers stuck in trees, ancestor temples or temples to deities are in arbitrary trees and on pavements. And even though they might appear to belong to nobody in particular there are lit incense sticks, fresh flowers and other offerings on them.

Some parts of this society are still a little behind. Hygiene in hospitals is unheard of with staff unaware of such niceties as washing hands before touching anybody. Dentists have their doors wide open to traffic and dust. And food refuse is thrown on the floor while eating.

Phoenix School. Still keeping in touch with Vietnam.

But it’s a great community of people living close together and looking after each other. And I will stay in contact with this beautiful country. For the next six months I will still work as a consultant for this school and I hope to be able to help with fundraising.

Of course it’s not an idyllic world either. Washing up dishes in the backyard while squatting down isn’t my idea of fun. And my boss from the school where I am doing some work in fundraising has his staff chopping food on the floor. And you should see his fantastic kitchen that has every modern convenience you can think of. Yet his housekeepers are cleaning veg on the floor outside next to the tap which is right next to a magnificent swimming pool. Hollywood folks would be jealous of it.

But perhaps that’s what’s so charming about this country. The opposites. Five star hotels next to houses where people are still cleaning food in their courtyards. And it is that. People live mixed up with a shack next to a fancy new house. And they all seem to get along somehow. And I suppose sometimes not. But it works. And that’s what I’m going to miss the most about Vietnam. It’s the people’s ability to make things work regardless of the setbacks they encounter. Whether it’s strapping a dozen live chicken to the motor bike or hanging your washing on the neighbour’s fence because that’s where it will get some sun during a break in the rainy season. You gotta love ‘em!

Posted in Fundraising, Hope Center Hue, Life in Hue, People Stuff, People with Disabilities, Philanthropy, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Open arms for the throw-away people

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

This is an industry that has one advantage and that is that it has a high growth curve. And we are just at the beginning of it. It’s a growth industry in any country. This particular one is the service industry that cares for the elderly especially those afflicted by dementia.

An article in Der Spiegel discusses a care home in Thailand for Swiss and German patients suffering from dementia i.e. diseases of the mind. 30 nursing staff and 10 patients. That kind of super care is hard to find.

What it boils down to is the fact that medical aid or pensions in developed countries such as Germany or Switzerland don’t pay enough money to hire care in their countries or to afford the good care facilities that are available. It’s unbelievably expensive to have three people looking after one person in a European country.

Move the entire operation into a weaker currency country such as Thailand and suddenly those Euros can afford care that is incredibly special and humanitarian too. There is a greater caring for the elderly and ill people in Asia in comparison to the developed world where the sick and elderly are considered a burden to society and to their families.

So why not send your aged parents to a paradise such as Thailand and let them be cared for by nurturing staff in an amazingly beautiful climate. Doesn’t that make sense? And above all else, the budget will allow it. Those strong Euros will pay for everything and leave something in the kitty for the grandkids to inherit.

It’s quite something though to farm out ones loved ones, or at least they used to be, to some arbitrary Care Farm in a foreign country. How much German can the Thai carers speak? How can they relate to the culture and background of their patients? What does it do to the rest of the family who know their grandmother or father is now holed up in a home in remote Thailand.

Yet one could argue that the home is something that is affordable and that the care is exceptional. Doesn’t it make economic sense? It’s a difficult question to answer. After all the elderly folk belong to somebody. You can’t just discard them, surely.

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities | No Comments »

A victory for disabled people

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Oscar Pistorius - Blade Runner

For all time that I know, disabled people have been viewed as just that. Disabled. Disabled in all aspects even though every disabled person has abilities. And in some cases these abilities are incredible. Just think of Stephen Hawking as an example. This disabled person can only communicate by blowing puffs of air into a gadget which spells out words on a screen. Yet he is a brilliant scientist. Highly respected. People don’t even think of him as disabled.

But disabled people who don’t shine like Hawking are totally disregarded and considered to be disabled in all parts of their beings. Just because a person is in a wheelchair doesn’t meant that he or she is intellectually impaired. In fact some wheelchair paraplegics are amazing in athletics or team sports such as basketball.

I have worked with intellectually disabled young people and they have been able to make the most beautiful handicraft products. Sure a little bit slower than others but a lot better quality because they have the patience to do it slowly and carefully and well.

So what made me write this post? The great news that Oscar Pistorius will be the first amputee athlete to compete at the able-bodied World Champs in Korea this year. He’s called the Blade Runner as he has to use attachments to his legs to be able to run.

He had to use lawyers to make application to the International Athletics Association to get permission. It took months and it meant he missed the Olympics in Beijing. But he’s a patient and determined man, that’s for sure. And it’s something disabled people have to live with all the time.

It’s an unwillingness by able bodied people to see past the disability and see the able person who wants to live just like them and pursue their dreams just like everybody else.

Well done Oscar Pistorius for doing just that. Following your dreams.

Posted in People Stuff, People with Disabilities, Recreation & Sport | No Comments »

It’s a harsh world we live in

Monday, August 1st, 2011

What makes me say that?

Obama has some partial agreement for his debt limit deal. And the Asian stock exchanges are celebrating. I am presuming that once London and New York open the same scenes of happiness will be shown by share price movement towards the heavens.

So why is this not good news? I suppose it’s good news for companies holding stocks in other companies and the big investors. The little guys have mostly had to leave the stock markets one would imagine after the serious ups and downs would have wiped most of the value from their shareportfolios. Especially the dramatic fall during the 2008 recession would have left the man in the street much poorer.

The debt limit deal does the following. No increases in tax. Just cuts to government spending that will involve thousands of programmes most of them dealing with services to the people. 1.8 trillion US dollars or more in deficit cuts will surely affect the poor and middle class the most.

After all the wealthy don’t need social services. And besides that they have gotten away unscathed in terms of paying more tax.

Of course to fix the situation in the immediate term the debt ceiling will be lifted by nearly one trillion US dollars. To pay it off, services will be cut.

And that’s what is so horrid. Many jobs will be lost, benefits to marginalised people such as disabled and disadvantaged folk will surely be cut, public parks closed down or run on shoestring budgets, museums left behind and the list will be a long one.

But the stock exchanges throughout the world see this as a good thing and are celebrating with upwardly moving share prices. They see it as creating more wealth for the investors while screwing over the little guy. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

Posted in Crimes against Humanity, People Stuff, People with Disabilities, Wealth generation | No Comments »

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