July is Disability Pride month so what better time than to hold Disability Expo? This year Disability Expo was held on the 6th and 7th July at the Excel in London. As someone who is registered blind, has multiple different eye conditions, neurological and mental health conditions; I decided to go and see what charities or organisations were out there for disabled people.
Initially I was very reluctant and nervous to attend this event. Would it be too loud? overly crowded? too bright? Was I going become overwhelmed which would lead to who knows what. I am convinced my thoughts were on a crowded non-stop carousel. But I managed to slow down to carousel enough to attend the event.
Before the event Disability Expo provided information on how to get there, food and drink, BSL interpretation/live captioning, audio description and a show guide. Personally as someone who is blind and has anxiety knowing what is happening when helps me to stay regulated; however, it was quite hard to know what was going on when the show guide didn’t work properly with a screen reader. Quite ironic as it was sent by Disability Expo themselves. I was also unable to get the audio description app they were using to work.
Arriving at the Excel centre security staff inform you to go down to hall N4. As a blind person if I hadn’t been with someone else I would of found it very hard to know if I was in the right place. Part of me thinks and feels there should be more information provided on how to get to the hall once you arrive at the centre or there should be staff at the entrance to offer more help.
The first thing that I attended was the People’s Panel on disability representation in the media. I found this talk interesting especially as someone who is hoping to get a job with in the media. For me there were several points made that resonated with me the first was from Mark Webb who told a story of how there were two adverts back to back which showed a wheelchair user which…
“brought me almost to tears.”
Mark Webb People’s Panellist
Mark did also express how more disabilities need to be shown as not everyone is a wheelchair user. The other thing which stuck with me was how TV productions either don’t consult disabled people or talk to disabled people and then ignore what has been said. This was empathised by both Ciara Lawrence who works for a disability charity and Nate Williams who is a Paralympic Producer. Nate Willia0ms said that he always views the “athlete first then disability”; and that he works with the athletes on how they want to address their disability. Ciara who works for a disability charity talked about how a TV show wanted their help on what a disabled person would need, so the charity went and offered help and then the TV show didn’t hire a disabled person. Another example of media misrepresentation is imagined up story lines this happened in a soap opera where a character had MS and started having hallucinations which is not a symptom of MS. This makes the public misinformed of conditions meaning disabled people feel responsible for correcting this.
“we as people with a disability are all different. We all have our own likes and dislikes and our own support needs”
Ciara Lawrence
After this talk finished it was time to go and look at all the different stalls.
Unfortunately I felt as if I was limited to the stalls I could interactive with; this was because a majority of the stalls were aimed at wheelchair users or those with Autism/ADHD. Personally this made the Expo feel stereotypical as not every disabled person is in wheelchairs. it also felt as if the point of the Expo was being ignored as not all disabilities had representation.
In fact there was only one stall which focused on people with visual impairment, FLAG-ME VI. This shocked me as over 2 million people in the UK have a visual impairment with 340,000 of those being registered blind. There was also only one stall representing MS (talk with MS) and one stall for sclerosis/spina bifida. these again are conditions which affect a large portion of the UK. over 130,000 people in the UK have MS with 130 diagnosed a week. It is also estimated that between 5 and 10 percent of the UK population have spina bifida.
With these statistics I personally would of thought there would be more stalls representing these conditions. I was unable to find the MS stall and there was no on at the FLAG-ME VI stall when I got there so I couldn’t even talk to these stalls.
There were stalls that I did manage to interact with and get information from. Below are some of my take aways from each stall.
The first stall that I spoke with was Wonder Pax and I can say the name is true. This was a stall which was selling reusable heated and cooled gel packs. There was a variety of different packs to chose from which all helped with different things. There were hand, neck, back and eye gel packs which all helped to alleviate muscular and joint pain as well as help circulation, decrease muscle spasms and expand muscle and tissues. The eye pack also helped with migraines, headaches and dry eye. All of the gel packs were designed so that they wouldn’t burn a persons skin. Initially I was very sceptical about this stall, I have tried using heated gel packs before to help manage my pain and muscle spasm but I found they never helped. These packs honestly helped so much with my pain in the few minutes I was at the stall that I was tempted to just stay there all day. I did come away from the Expo with one of every single gel pack they had which came in hand when I got home and was in pain from the day. Wonder Pax definitely suit there name. The only complaint I would have is that there products are expensive and it is easy to say ‘I will just get one from elsewhere’.
Next up was Aventido an assistive technology stand. As someone who is reliant on technology this stall intrigued me although the company isn’t primarily aimed at blind people they still have to technology to help. In particular the OrCam (which is small device) can read text, recognise faces and help identify objects in your surroundings helping blind and visually impaired people live and work independently. Aventido also offer text to speech and speech to text software which can help blind people especially those with other disabilities. I did find this stall interesting and enjoyed talking to the staff who were helpful and gave me some ideas of how I can get these products through DSA or access to work.
Integrex are a sensory room company which offer interactive floor and screens. integrex offer and audio visual experience, with all of their visual games and scenes come with music or a sound. This did make the experience more immersive and inclusive. There was nothing to say that the software was accessible with screen readers but there is potential that it does; some of the games were harder to access if you have a visual impairment. I did like the idea of this company as it did help with some of the anxiety I was feeling at the event but I don’t think I had enough time at this stall to accurately pass judgment on this company.
World Explorer Holidays is a company that helps disabled people book holidays; the company handles flights, tours, hotels and much more. What I really liked about this company was that they openly admitted that they had limited knowledge on other disabilities such as visual impairments and that they were already looking at getting braille leaflets. The idea that someone else helps you book and plan your holiday immediately made me less stressed and the fact that they would be available before, during and after your holiday to help represent you in any issues you may have. (if your reading this Paula I thought you were amazing and I loved your company) In the future when I am able to book a holiday I will definitely be looking at this company for help.
Bond hotel also offered fully accessible holidays in Blackpool for people with physical disabilities, learning difficulties and mental health conditions.
Speaking of travel Great Western Railways also held a stand; now I have previously helped GWR with improving their accessibility and it was great to see Dan Pearce again especially with all of the new products they have which help disabled people, particularly those with visual impairments. My favourite product that were on display were the cards that let people know you had an assistance dog underneath the seat which GWR designed and was then taken on at a national level. I also really liked the idea of the help booklet which informed people of what help you may need and your most regular stations (this product was also available in braille which would help me greatly) this is another product I feel needs to be taken on at a national level.
The hidden disability sunflower lanyard company were also in attendance raising more awareness to the sunflower lanyard campaign. They were giving out lanyards, badges, stickers, magnets and sunflower seeds. This was one of the only stalls I felt represents all disabilities.
Like I said earlier there were many stalls that were aimed at wheelchair users such as Chunc Wheelchairs, Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby, Mybility All Terrain Wheelchairs and The Wheelchair Alliance.
In between looking at all of the stalls I also attended a talk about accessibility at the BBC held by Robbie Crow. I found this talk very insightful and interesting particularly as someone who is hoping to work at a media company in the future. Robbie talked about how the BBC had a designated accessibility team which worked on making sure assistive technology worked with the software and how the BBC helps fund what you need to make sure you can start work within 4 to 6 weeks instead of having to wait for the Access to Work scheme to fund what you need. He also talked about how there are specific projects which help recruit disabled people. The BBC has what is known as 50 20 12; this means that they want to ensure that 50% of the workforce is women, 20% are from BAME communities, 12% are disabled. Afterwards I spoke to Robbie about whether there were limitations for people with certain disabilities due to accessibility issue with screen reader software and things like teleprompters; for this Robbie said that there would be two options using an earpiece to have it read to you or using braille which has some downfalls as you have to be a fast braille reader, You can find our more about the BBC diversity and inclusion aims below.
Robbie’s speech helped me feel like I was capable of getting a job in the future and I was very grateful to him even if I did momentarily forget how to communicate with someone when talking with him.
Overall I was definitely expecting more from this Expo. Personally I felt there was a lack of representation for those with hearing/sight impairments, some neurological/neuromuscular conditions and some mental health conditions. whilst there were some stalls there that would help with this there are many other charities that could have been invited to make it seem less like you had to be in a wheelchair to get help. If I had been on my own I do worry that I may not have found any of the stalls I wanted too as I would be unable to see which stall/area i was in and the app for audio description didn’t seem to work for me.
Despite this I did feel it was a worthwhile event and I particularly enjoyed the panel I went to. All my worries about it being too loud or too crowded were wrong whilst the expo was crowded it didn’t feel as if you were being squashed like sardines and it wasn’t too loud compared to other places I have been.
The AWord 