Assessing barriers and celebrating access

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This article was published 01/06/2011 (5455 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Is Windsor Park an accessible community?

That’s the question Derek Legge and Daniel Halechko are setting out to answer.

The pair are co-ordinators of the Thumbs Up for Access project, run by the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities.

The project — which promotes accessibility issues — was launched in downtown Winnipeg in 2009, when the group offered suggestions on accessibility to all street-level retailers in the area.

The group is now interested in examining accessibility issues from a community perspective, according to Legge. That includes looking at not only retailers, but also churches, medical facilities, grocery stores and restaurants, schools, apartment buildings and parks.

“The decision was to go out into where people live, and ask what it’s like for people in the community,” he explained.

Windsor Park was chosen as the first community to be assessed because it’s a smaller neighbourhood and because Legge is familiar with it from having grown up in the area.

“I wanted to see what’s happened to (accessibility in) Windsor Park since 1967,” joked Legge, who now lives in St. James.

Legge said that when he talks about accessibility, some people assume he’s talking strictly about wheelchair ramps — an assumption which is compounded by the fact he uses a wheelchair.

The reality, he said, is that accessibility is about so much more than just wheelchair access.

An accessible environment needs to take into account people with visual or co-ordination disabilities, or conditions such as arthritis, he said.

“Each have their barriers that they bump up against,” Legge explained.

That’s why — as he and Halechko begin their assessment and promotion of accessibility issues within Windsor Park — the pair will be looking at more than wheelchair ramps.

Are there benches at the bus stops, wonders Halechko, who lives in St. Boniface. Are the church service programs and restaurant menus in large print, Legge asked.

Beyond distributing helpful hints to groups in the area and offering detailed assessments, Halechko and Legge also hope to get feedback from individuals with disabilities who live in the area.

When the project is completed in September, Legge added, the pair will have mapped out the area:

highlighting accessibility and creating a resource manual for the neighbourhood, as well as initiating and inspiring access improvement projects.

“We hope to be providing information to help people get some of these changes started,” he said.

Once Windsor Park’s assessment is complete, the pair hopes to start all over again in Wolseley.

Halechko, added that regardless of the neighbourhood, the barriers to accessibility remain the same — as does the need for accessibility.

“These issues don’t change,” he said.

Anyone living in Windsor Park who would like to speak with Daniel Halechko or Derek Legge about accessibility issues in the community can call Thumbs Up for Access at 943-6099.

arielle.godbout@canstarnews.com