In honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, ACB staff member Claire Stanley spoke with two ACB members, Kim Charlson and Mitch Pomerantz. Both Kim and Mitch have held, or currently hold, leadership positions in the World Blind Union (WBU). To celebrate the lives of disabled persons from around the globe, listeners of this episode will learn more about what WBU does.
On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update, Claire and Clark speak with Rachel Weisberg, Staff Attorney for Equip for Equality, the state protection and advocacy agency for Illinois. Rachel shares with us the legal landscape for Internet and website accessibility and walks us through several legal scenarios for digital workplace inclusion.
To find the protection and advocacy agency in your state, please visit: https://www.ndrn.org/about/ndrn-member-agencies/.
On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update, Claire and Clark get to know the organizations supporting our blind and visually impaired veterans. First, they speak with Don Overton, President, Blinded Veterans Association (BVA) about BVA’s peer support network and advocacy initiatives. Then, they speak with ACB’s own Tyson Ernst, acting President, Visually Impaired Veterans of America (VIVA) regarding the VIVA affiliate and the tools and resources available to visually impaired veterans. To learn more about BVA, please visit: www.bva.org. To learn more and become involved with VIVA, please send an email to [email protected].
On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update, Claire and Clark discuss the recent updates in the audio description marketplace. They speak with Sam Joehl, President, ACB of Virginia, about the work of the Federal Communications Commission and their Disability Advisory Committee, and they speak with Dr. Joel Snyder, Director, ACB’s Audio Description Project about ACB’s ongoing work to increase audio description availability. To learn more about audio description innovations and to know what content is audio described, visit www.acb.org/adp.
On this episode of the Advocacy Update, Clark Rachfal is joined by representatives from the U.S. Association of Blind athletes (USABA) to discuss the third annual and first virtual National Blind Sports Day. Cat Bouwkamp, USABA’s Membership and SafeSport Coordinator shares the impact of USABA’s work on the health and wellness of people who are blind and low vision, and Paralympian Ben Goodrich shares his personal experience as a judo athlete as well as additional resources available to help ACB members and the broader community to get up and get moving. To learn more about and participate in National Blind Sports Day on Oct. 3, visit: www.usaba.org/blindsportsday/.
This week on the podcast, Claire, the advocacy and out reach specialist, and Tony Stephens, the director of development, celebrate the two-year anniversary of the podcast. They reminisce about the first episode of the podcast, and then turn to the topic of the week: national guide dog month. They both talk about their experiences as guide dog handlers. Lots of laughs ensue.