Global Accessibility Awareness Day — Why I choose to work in Accessibility
Happy GAAD, everyone! My name is Sydney. I first interned with Access to Success in Fall 2021 and recently returned to the organization as a full-time team member. In the spirit of increasing accessibility awareness, I’d like to share with you why I wanted to come back to the world of accessibility and disability inclusion.
Get to know Sydney
I recently had the chance to reflect on what drives me forward. I thought back to when I supported my late Grandmother through her journey with dementia. When she was younger, my Grandmother loved to sing. Knowing that music can bring back memories, I decided to find music that was popular when she was in her youth and played it for her. She absolutely loved the music and I knew that my compassion helped her. In moments like these when we were dancing around the living room to Frank Sinatra, I felt great joy knowing that I was able to bring back feelings of nostalgia and happiness for her.
I’ve come to realize that I get energized by helping people and I’m happiest when I can step into a situation and make a direct impact. What better way to do that than helping push innovation in accessibility?
Accessibility = Inclusion
To me, accessibility is almost synonymous with inclusion. Have you ever been excluded from a party that everyone seemed to have been invited to? It feels alienating and you can be left asking yourself if there’s something wrong with you, or what you did to deserve this treatment.
How about if you have a disability requiring you to use a wheelchair and you want to go watch your favourite artist perform, but you find out the concert venue is inaccessible. Why should you have to miss out on an enjoyable experience because of inaccessible design? Working in Accessibility opened my eyes to this. Disabled people constantly work to navigate a world that wasn’t made with them in mind.
Having ADHD myself, I was familiar with a few accommodations offered in school for ADHD. But working in accessibility opened my eyes to a myriad of challenges and opportunities for people with disabilities. A few years ago if you asked me what alt text was, I would have told you it’s the text that loads in place of images when your internet connection is really slow. I had no idea that people who use screen readers rely on alt text to describe an image to them. I’m glad to say I’ve learned a lot in the last few years.
Everybody starts somewhere
We all start somewhere. Working in accessibility, you must be willing to always learn, listen and improve. If you want to truly make an impact you must listen to people who have lived experience. Accessibility isn’t an item to check off a list. Being truly accessible means being able to adapt to new changes and implement feedback from the disabled community.
Being an empathetic person, I try my best to understand the experiences of others and the choices they make. I believe these traits drive my passion for working in accessibility. At the end of the day, I want to help people and working in accessibility is a way for me to do that.
I want you to know that you don’t need to be an expert in accessibility to make an impact or to be accessible. Little changes like adding captions to your videos or speaking up when something is inaccessible can benefit everyone right away. And who knows, maybe in a few years time, you might find yourself writing a blog post just like this one.
