Third-class citizen ... again

I went to an information event today about Personalisation [a way for disabled people to be more independent in their day-to-day lives - or at least those disabled people who meet the criteria]. The event ran from 12-5 but I left after about an hour, thoroughly depressed, frustrated and furiously angry.

About a dozen organisations or charities had tables at the event, all with leaflets, booklets, and such – and not one of them had anything in large print or alternative format.

Let me say that again: at an event run to inform disabled people of disability help options, NOT ONE organisation or charity out of a dozen had ANYTHING that could be immediately accessed by a visually impaired person in the same way that a sighted person could pick up a leaflet and read it then and there.

NOT ONE of these disabled organisations or charities had apparently thought that a person could have “their” disability AND be visually impaired, so they’d better do a little something just in case.

It seems that the only organisations or charities that acknowledge the existence of visual impairment are visually-impaired organisations or charities themselves. For the rest, we’re not even on the fringes of their radar.

Granted, alternative format comes in many shapes and forms, and at varying expense: but not one even had a “who we are and what we do” leaflet in large print.

Okay, so they may not come across a lot of visually-impaired people in their usual line of work, but they should at least accept that it could happen, and make even a tiny nod in our direction. They could at least acknowledge that we exist – even if it’s just the organisation’s name and phone number in large print.

How would they like it if they attended a disabled information event, and found that all the information was in Braille and inaccessible to them? How “included” would they feel then? But that’s what they’re doing to us.

This is by no means the first time this has happened, and I very much doubt that it will be the last. But it makes me so damn angry that I’m not even regarded as second-class – I’m the underclass to the underclass.

On the way home, I stopped off at the local education centre that had a large sign “pick up a course guide here”. True to form, they had nothing in alternative format either.

Sometimes I despair, I really do. There's oceans of information that would help me greatly - if I could access it. But I'm denied the chance to find out how to improve my quality of life because I'm visually impaired and so not a real person.

What's the point in trying to do anything? Just what is the bloody point?