(In) Accessibility: Commentary on Disability Rights

Image courtesy of travelweekly.com Traveling.  It is really fun, right?  I love traveling!  I have been to three other countries outside of the United States, as well as thirty-six states.  There are so many ways to travel now in the 21st century;  Car, train, plane, boat, you name it, you can travel by it.  However, with the joy of traveling and discovering a new place, come some annoyances.  While I could go on for hours about travel, I am solely going to discuss airline travel, as this is the most common way I travel, and the one with the most accessibility issues.  Also, if I covered all of them, this would be a really long post, and you would probably lose interest rather quickly.  Let me explain. Growing up, my dad has always worked in the airline industry in several capacities.  Thus, I fly A LOT.  However, traveling via air is one of the worst ways to explore the world when using a wheelchair.  Why you may ask?  Oh, several reasons.  For starters, airports are HUGE.  Whe

Oh, elevators.  Elevators are central to daily life, especially the life of a daily wheelchair user like me. However, elevators are a pain to deal with every single day.  I have encountered a countless number of elevator issues, some of which I will outline below. The first thing you need to know is, I have a huge fear of elevators.  Now, half of that stems from the fact that I am terrified of being in enclosed spaces, also known as claustrophobia.  The second half of this stems from previous terrifying experiences that I have had in elevators.  Well, actually, it was just one terrifying experience, but trust me, one was enough. When I was in 6th grade, I was stuck in an elevator.  It was the last day of school.  My school had two floors.  I was with my best friend and we were headed downstairs to the gym for an end-of-the-year celebration.   Then, the elevator shut down.  We were stuck for half an hour.  We kept pressing the bell button.  Nothing.  There was no phone in the el

Both of these images are my own. "Wheelers set, go".  This is what I hear before every race.  You might be wondering, "Wait... isn't she in a wheelchair?  How can she be talking about races?"  Well, this post will explain all of that.  In this post, I will discuss wheelchair track and field. I have been doing the sport for six years, I am currently in my seventh year.  I started in middle school.  When I first started, I was not quite sure how it would work out.  At the time, my coach lived across the street from me.  He was the one who convinced me to join.  I fell in love with it.  Once I got into high school, I started taking it more seriously.  In middle school, I just raced in my everyday chair.  In high school, I purchased a racing chair, which you can see in the picture on the left.  Now, I am going to delve into how to race and how to throw. Throughout high school, I did three racing events.  They were the 100 meters, 400 meters, and 8

Image Courtesy of Cloquet Transit Accessible busing.  This is something that I have experienced my entire life. My school district held a contract with a company close by that has strictly accessible buses.  These buses were equipped with an electric ramp that rose children in wheelchairs into the buses.  Then, there were straps that attached to the person's wheelchair to keep them from moving around the bus.  Also, kids with cognitive disabilities were also on these buses.  I have used this service within my district since Kindergarten.  I had never had many issues on these buses. That was, until my senior year of high school.  At this point, the bus company that my school district contracted with, was severely understaffed.  So understaffed, in fact, that the owner hired his son's girlfriend, who had no experience whatsoever with driving a bus, or working with children with disabilities. It started out fine.  Then, things got a little... inappropriate.  See, a

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia I just want to start this post by introducing myself.  My name is Leah, and I am a college student in Pennsylvania, however, I am originally from Wisconsin.  I have a disability called Spina Bifida, which I will not explain unless anyone feels that it would be beneficial.   For my blog, I wanted to bring in my personal experiences with living in the United States while being in a wheelchair.  This blog will also include current and past disability rights issues.  I have had some advocacy experience in this area.  For this blog, I will talk about these experiences. When I was born in the late 1990s, Wisconsin struggled to fund programs and other things for individuals with disabilities.  Several years later, when I was about five, I began to understand what disability rights were, and what I could do to improve it.  Around this time, within the state government, debates were being held whether or not to increase or decrease the funding of programs