- LanguageAfrikaans Argentina AzÉrbaycanca
á¥áá áá£áá Äesky Ãslenska
áá¶áá¶ááááá à¤à¥à¤à¤à¤£à¥ বাà¦à¦²à¦¾
தமிழ௠à²à²¨à³à²¨à²¡ ภาษาà¹à¸à¸¢
ä¸æ (ç¹é«) ä¸æ (é¦æ¸¯) Bahasa Indonesia
Brasil Brezhoneg CatalÃ
ç®ä½ä¸æ Dansk Deutsch
Dhivehi English English
English Español Esperanto
Estonian Finnish Français
Français Gaeilge Galego
Hrvatski Italiano Îλληνικά
íêµì´ LatvieÅ¡u Lëtzebuergesch
Lietuviu Magyar Malay
Nederlands Norwegian nynorsk Norwegian
Polski Português RomânÄ
Slovenšcina Slovensky Srpski
Svenska Türkçe Tiếng Viá»t
Ù¾Ø§Ø±Ø³Û æ¥æ¬èª ÐÑлгаÑÑки
ÐакедонÑки Ðонгол Ð ÑÑÑкий
СÑпÑки УкÑаÑнÑÑка ×¢×ר×ת
اÙعربÙØ© اÙعربÙØ©
Home / Albums / Tag community 2
- ADAPT (306)
Disability Rag September/October 1987 RAGOUT WHAT'S COOKIN' [This article continues in ADAPT 305 but all the text has been included here for easier reading.] At the bottom of the page is a cute cartoon of a bus driving along crammed full of folks. “There's been more public discussion in 5 days than there’d been in 5 years" “Now we’re taken more seriously” —As time for ADAPT demonstrations in San Francisco draw near, this story of how one local disability group responded to the influx of ADAPT members from all over the country shows how ADAPT’s style of direct action can work with local disability groups more accustomed to working “within the system." - ed. When ADAPT members from all over the country began descending on Phoenix this spring to protest at the American Public Transit Association’s regional meeting, staff of the Arizona Bridge to Independent Living felt some anxiety over where our loyalties lay. The City of Phoenix had been receptive to the disability community. They'd purchased only accessible buses the last three years. Phoenix's Regional Public Transportation Association had spent hundreds of hours working with us. Yet we also knew from brief interaction with ADAPT that their strongly-worded opinions best expressed our frustration and anger at the system's unwillingness to commit to 100% accessibility. ABIL decided to work with both groups. Prior to their coming, we discussed with ADAPT the guidelines they’d follow in deciding what level of civil disobedience would be involved. We found ADAPT’s demand — that cities purchase only accessible buses in the normal course of replacing a fleet — a reasonable one. ADAPT wasn’t demanding bus systems retrofit their buses, or that they immediately replace all their buses with lift-equipped ones — just a long-term commitment to change. " A month before the APTA meeting, ABIL met with RPTA officials to discuss our and ADAPT's demands for accessibility. To our surprise, RPTA suggested their commitment be put in writing and adopted by their board! ADAPT was already having an effect — and they weren't even in town yet! The day before, ADAPT arrived. ABIL hosted a meeting for those disabled people from all over the community who were most likely to be contacted by media or others regarding the APTA/ADAPT confrontation. A consensus emerged that the disability community would maintain a united front; that the local community's interests were the same as ADAPT’s and that any public discussion beyond that — especially regarding ADAPT's "techniques" — would simply distract from the central issue: accessible mass transit. This single act of meeting and making these decisions was the thing most responsible for the success of our efforts. By spreading the word, we were able to keep from being forced into a public debate over the differences between persons with disabilities rather than focusing the debate on our common interest —- accessible public transit. Negative comments from a few individuals in the community were lost among the events of the next several days. ABIL found itself taking an increasingly larger role as protests and police reaction escalated, with some of us participating in the demonstrations, others calling politicians and media, putting pressure on local bureaucrats and helping to keep lines of communication open. The mayor of Phoenix, in the midst of the media barrage, made a public statement supporting the purchase of accessible buses. After APTA and ADAPT had left Phoenix, ABIL set up a meeting between the Mayor and local ADAPT members. It was the first time the Mayor had sat down with members of the disability community to discuss transportation. Although he and some transit system officials were still angry about the demonstrations, they were taking us more seriously. That's a tradeoff we’re willing to make. The ADAPT experience was a positive one for ABIL and the disability community in Phoenix. The events caused more public discussion about accessible public transit in those five days than there had been in Phoenix in the past five years. The longer the topic stayed in the news, the greater appreciation the public had for the need for accessible public transit. — Robert E. Michaels Executive Director Arizona Bridge to Independent Living, ABIL. - ADAPT (32)
History and Mission Independent Living for People with Disabilities [This brochure continues in ADAPT 33, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by Tom Olin (bottom right): A man (George Roberts) in wheelchair raises the power fist with his right hand. He is carrying a sign that reads "Nursing Homes = Jail." Behind him a group of other wheelchair protesters are lining up. Atlantis was founded in 1975, the second “Independent Living Center” in the country after Berkeley. A group of young disabled adults and six concerned staff from a Denver nursing home concluded that no amount of outings to concerts or bingo games could normalize life for these young people. The real solution was to move into the community, in apartments within the city’s neighborhoods, to create self-determined lifestyles where the disabled clients choose their own food, direct their own care, and determine their own priorities. This was a revolutionary concept in 1975, but the people of Atlantis were able to convince the State Legislature to fund personal care assistance outside an institutional setting for the very first time. In the more than fifteen years since its founding, the agency has been able to assist over 400 disabled adults in moving from sheltered settings and maintaining independent lives. The Atlantis Community staff specializes in assistance for very severely, multiply-disabled people, carrying out our belief that any disabled person can live outside an institution, if s/he is willing to accept the risks and inconveniences in order to enjoy self-determination and liberty. To that end, the staff and clients are experts in helping with everything from finding an apartment to applying for benefits, from grocery shopping to weddings, from cooking training to camping trips. The assistance with daily living activities and the basic skills training and reinforcement offered are complemented by the trained and state-certified staff of home health aides and their supervisors who visit the clients at home as often as needed — usually several times a day. The people of Atlantis also offer other independent living services to people throughout the nation — ranging from information and referral services to assertiveness training and technical assistance. The city of Denver and the Atlantis Community have become a mecca for disabled people seeking an accessible environment and comprehensive services. PHOTO by Tom Olin (top left corner): 4 people in wheelchairs (left to right, Joe Carle, Diane Coleman, Bob Kafka and Mark Johnson) lead a march. Everyone is dressed in revolutionary war garb -- wigs, three cornered hats, jackets with braid on them. Over their heads is a large flag, the ADAPT flag. PHOTO (bottom right): An older man (Mel Conrardy) in a white jacket and pants, sits in a wheelchair on a lift at the front door of a bus. To his right on the side of the bus door it says RTD Welcome Aboard. Mel looks relaxed and is smiling.