Disability and Accessibility

With gestures and mime rolled into one, this little-known art form, called Visual Vernacular (VV), is proudly used by the Deaf community for artistic expression. In VV, visual storytelling replaces formal signs, enabling people from both the Deaf and hearing communities to connect, understand each other and communicate without words.

In India, while Deaf artists are eager to showcase their art, there are very few welcoming, inclusive art spaces for them. A lack of familiarity among the hearing community with sign language and the access needs of d/Deaf people has resulted in inaccessibility not only in art and cultural spaces, but also in education and employment. This gap in knowledge among hearing people limits interaction between the hearing and Deaf communities and is also a barrier to current advocacy efforts to make Indian Sign Language (ISL) the 23rd official language of India.

Alim Chandani is a Deaf activist working to integrate Deaf artists into the mainstream art scene in India. As the mission leader of Hear A Million, a project by the NGO Enable India that helps the Deaf community to lead productive lives, and the founder of the social enterprise Freedom to Sign, Chandani is bringing together Deaf artists and supporting them in honing their skills in VV and other forms of art including photography, painting, filmmaking, and poetry.

VV is still an emerging art in India, but it is as old as The Beatles. It is said to date back to the 1960s in the United States, when Deaf artist Bernard Bragg began blending mime techniques with American Sign Language. Over the years, Bragg’s innovative art has spread worldwide, gaining popularity in countries like Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom. Joel Ortiz, a VV artist and founder of Joz Studio based in Orlando, Florida, says that across the globe, VV is being used not only as an art, but also “for activism and cultural expression.”

The students are part of Deaf-in-Tech, a program designed to break barriers for Nigeria’s Deaf community in the country’s booming tech industry. Over the past decade, tech has emerged as one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing sectors, contributing at least 20 percent to the country’s GDP in the second quarter of 2024, and drawing in at least $2 billion in foreign investments. Yet, despite this growth, tech job opportunities for people with disabilities remain scarce.

Deaf-in-Tech aims to change that by providing a platform that empowers deaf individuals with the skills and resources needed to break into Nigeria’s tech industry through specialized training programs, mentorship initiatives and strategic partnerships. Unlike conventional coding boot camps, where spoken explanations dominate, here, lessons are delivered through sign language.

“All you need is their attention,” Oricha explains. “Once that is secured, you can be sure they will give you their best.”

Does anyone else live in South East Asia while collecting SSDI?

I have done this a few times and although it's legal I totally feel bad for it.

I get disability for Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Without something like Lexapro I can turn into kind of a wreck. Even suicidal or suffering from panic attacks.

Does anyone ever feel like this isn't a real disability? I mean, it's not like I'm in a wheelchair. Sometimes I feel like I am cheating.

But there are others out there like myself. There has to be.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/32040879

For gamedevs/game requests: Here's some info on how to make a game available on there

It's still a young platform, so please give them lots of feedback to help improve it!

[3 different thumbnails given to you randomly. All have words in yellow text. One says "explaining ableist language" another has "intro to ableist language" and one says "what is ableist language?". They are all next to the disabled pride flag and on a digital art wooden background with a grey table in the bottom left corner]

Looks like Trump forgot to fire this DEI hire.

Good for him!

So it's finally happened.

I went to the sauna after my swim at the municipal swimming pool, and as always I was super careful because I don't have great balance and the floor is always slippery in there.

And... I slipped. I splattered myself all over the floor in front of 15 sweaty dudes in Adam's costume and hit my knee bad enough that I couldn't get up.

3 or 4 of them dudes got up to help and scraped me off the floor. No real harm done, but my ego is still bruised 6 hours later. I just wanted to vent a bit. Sorry...

Will no one rid me of this turbulent billionaire?

So I was reading this article about Trump's crackdown on DEIA initiatives, and I must admit, I didn't know what the A stands for in that acronym. So I looked it up and and it's accessibility.

Which raises the question: doesn't killing accessibility programs violate the Americans with Disabilities Act? To my knowledge, the ADA is still very much in force.

Another possible angle to mete some justice to this depressing heartless man...