Disability Awareness Committee

 Access and Abilities

By Christina Clift
On Thursday, November 9, 2017 the members of the Memphis Advisory Council for Citizens with Disabilities (MACCD) Disability Awareness Committee met to begin working on meeting their goals for 2018.  The committee established two main goals during the strategic planning meeting held back in August.  They include Holding a city-wide conference and creating a media and social media campaign that will emphasize the strengths and abilities of Memphians with disabilities.  

The committee also plans to work on improving the disaster preparedness policies in our city by looking at ways to improve communication during the event to all persons with disabilities.  Besides performing a postmortem of our Lifecare Planning Seminar, the committee worked to create action steps to begin planning a city-wide event in 2018.  We decided to table the media and social media campaign action plan until our January meeting.

The committee decided to hold the city-wide conference focusing on Access and Abilities either on September 19^th or 26^th of 2018.  The committee plans to ensure that this event is as hands-on and interactive as possible.  Some of the ideas for the event will include an assistive technology fair.  This event would not only demonstrate new devices or software that enable people with disabilities to do everyday activities, but also educating the public about the latest advancements in technology so that they can make informed choices.  

Our second area will be adaptive sports.  Again, not only will there be demonstrations but also an educational component about how to create adaptive sports programs in our community.  Next, we plan to have an obstacle course to simulate various types of disabilities.  This activity will provide attendees the opportunity to experience briefly how people with disabilities do everyday things like buttoning a shirt with one hand or getting something from a high shelf while seated in a wheelchair.  Finally, we will have several panel discussions related to the various activity areas.  While this event is not finalized, we hope to have a location and date nailed down by December 15, 2017 and will begin publicizing it by the end of January.

The next meeting of the Disability Awareness Committee is scheduled for January 11, 2018 from 1:00-2:30 PM.  If you’d like more information on how to join the committee or would like to provide input, please e-mail Christina Clift, the committee’s chair at christina@mcil.org or call (901) 726-6404 ext. 108.