“It shouldn’t be a luxury”: Marie Harrower on the Braille Food Labels Campaign Marie Harrower is a member of the Oban and District Access Panel, a braille reader since childhood, and the driving energy behind the Food Labelling Campaign. In general terms, this campaign aims to make the food packaging manufactures put braille labels on their products. In a broader sense, it’s not just about the manufacturing process – it’s about inclusion that had to be implemented a long time ago yet was repeatedly postponed. Although it’s 2024, people with sight loss are still at great disadvantage while shopping in
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News: Taking a Peek into Lip Reading Classes in Ayr Following the launch of the new Access Panel on 26 January, Disability Equality Scotland dived into exploring Ayrshire’s accessibility groups. We interviewed Frances Brown – a user representative in Sensory Impaired Support Group in Ayrshire. She’s also a new member of the South Ayrshire Access Panel. Frances attends lip reading classes to improve her communication after her hearing has deteriorated, prompting her to use hearing aids. Three lip reading classes currently take place in three towns across Ayrshire. One in Goldstone in the East, one in Largs in the North,
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Deaf, disabled and/or Neurodivergent – Careers at the BBC The BBC has made a commitment to be accessible first in everything we do, and to support our Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent talent to grow and develop with and alongside the BBC. We’re looking for Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people to join us in roles opening across Journalism, Content Production and Production Management to name a few. It is important for us have continued open dialogues and provide insight into the BBC as a workplace. In the next few months, we have a number of events we’d love for you to
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Easy Read Training – New Dates Available! Easy Read is an accessible format that makes written information easier to understand because it uses simple, jargon-free language, shorter sentences and supporting images. Our course is delivered online through a series of modules. The modules are communicative and interactive with lots of exercises for you to engage with and learn from. You will be expected to collaborate with others and contribute to groups. The practical exercises build up from simple everyday examples to complex, abstract concepts. You are introduced to the skills to format and create an Easy Read version of a
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Scottish Charities Demand Retailers Provide Braille Labelling on Food Products On World Braille Day, 04 January 2023, Sight Scotland, Oban and District Access Panel, and Disability Equality Scotland, launched a campaign demanding that new requirements are placed on retailers to provide braille labelling on food products. Currently, braille labelling is only required for medicines, meaning braille users are not able to identify the food products they wish to purchase and use. The charities are calling for a statutory duty to be placed on businesses and retailers to provide braille labels on food products detailing the name of the item and
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Helpline for Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Launches New Materials for British Sign Language Users The national Helpline service has created three new videos for BSL users: What is domestic abuse? What is forced marriage? What you can expect when you contact the Helpline. BSL users can contact the Helpline confidentially using Contact Scotland BSL, Scotland’s national BSL video interpreting service. Zara Gilmour, Helpline Manager, said: “Our Helpline is for everyone in Scotland and we want to make sure that anyone experiencing domestic abuse or forced marriage knows that we are here to speak to them in the language they
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Easy Read Training – New Dates Available! New dates are now available for our Easy Read training course this summer. Easy Read is an accessible format that makes written information easier to understand because it uses simple, jargon-free language, shorter sentences and supporting images. Our course is delivered online through a series of modules. The modules are communicative and interactive with lots of exercises for you to engage with and learn from. You will be expected to collaborate with others and contribute to groups. The practical exercises build up from simple everyday examples to complex, abstract concepts. You are introduced
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Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD) We all need help to understand things when our circumstances and the world in which we live in changes. We need to be informed if we are to have choice and control as independent and active citizens. When the world changes dramatically, as it has during the ongoing pandemic, then the need to provide accessible and understandable information is greater than ever. In our engagement with people with learning disabilities during the pandemic, they stressed that there was a lack of accessible information about the changes that were taking place. This helped
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Dyslexia Scotland – Empowering people with dyslexia to reach their full potential Dyslexia Scotland is a national charity whose aim is to help children and adults with dyslexia reach their full potential. 1 in 10 people in Scotland is dyslexic. Most assume that dyslexia is just about reading, writing and spelling but it can also affect things such as organisation, following instructions and short term memory difficulties. As well as the difficulties dyslexia can present, we also focus on the positives of dyslexia such as creativity, out of the box thinking and strong problem solving skills. We do this through
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Sense Scotland – Communication Approaches and Systems Recently at Sense Scotland, we have been updating information on the communication approaches and systems that we regularly use. This has reminded us of two main ideas: 1) the human need to connect with others to share stories, information and our life experiences is incredibly powerful; and 2) humans are incredibly diverse in their efforts to make contact with other people. On a day-to-day basis, in Sense Scotland we use more than 25 different communication systems.  Amongst this, there are at least 10 different signed communication and language approaches, including British Sign Language
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