Thread: Blind people discriminated throughout the globe even more in Britain

Leo,


Here is on of your very own statistics on how much my people are screwed by you the sighted devils.

The great barrier grief | Society | SocietyGuardian.co.uk

and here is the information if you are lazy. The great barrier grief
Britain has one of the best anti-discrimination laws in the world, so why are blind
and partially sighted people still struggling with access to employment, transport
and information
Debbie Andalo
Wednesday April 23, 2008
SocietyGuardian.co.uk
Public perception, poor access to information and lack of mobility are the three
main barriers preventing equality for blind and partially sighted people.
Statistics gathered by charities and organisations striving to help people overcome
these obstacles illustrate just how much more still needs to be done, despite 13
years of disability discrimination legislation. Some 66% of blind or partially sighted
people of working age are unemployed, and nearly the same number again (67%) have
no formal qualifications, according to latest figures.
Isolation is another issue: 48% of visually impaired people admit they have difficulty
going out alone because of potential hazards on the streets, as well as lack of access
to public transport.
Fazilet Hadi, director of policy and advocacy at the Royal National Institute of
Blind People (RNIB), who trained as a lawyer, says: "This isn't just about changing
the law. I think that the UK has probably got some of the best (anti-disability discrimination)
law, but I think we should use the law and challenge it more. We also need to change
the way that people think."
Sue Sharpe, head of public policy and campaigns at the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association,
agrees: "The discrimination law in the UK is probably up there with the leaders globally.
But it's one thing having the legislation, and another thing delivering it."
Hadi was born with a genetic condition that meant she started losing her sight when
she was nine: she became partially sighted, then blind. She believes public attitude
towards blind and partially sighted people has changed a little in the past couple
of decades, but ignorance and fear still influences public and professional behaviour.
She says: "I trained as a solicitor and I remember one day in court the usher almost
dragged me to sit down, that would be more unlikely to happen now. I think today
somebody would be more likely to offer some help and give an arm to support you."
Hadi says it would take about 30 minutes to educate employers, professionals working
in the public services and the general public about the etiquette around guiding
blind and partially sighted people.
She says: "It's so that people understand not to grab people or shove them and not
to make assumptions about what being blind or partially sighted means." Teaching
school children about appropriate behaviour around people who are visually impaired
could be included as part of their personal, social, health education (PHSE) lessons,
while a behaviour code could also be written into staff training for those working
in the NHS and social care sectors, she suggests.
Lack of access to information, which covers daily newspapers, books for learning
and pleasure, and information on internet sites, as well as instructions about how
to use your washing machine, is a major problem for the visually impaired, which
stands in the way of equality to education and performing the daily tasks that people
with sight take for granted.
RNIB is campaigning for bigger size print to be used in all printed materials and
on websites, as well as a move towards what it calls "inclusive design", so that
machines such as dishwashers and washing machines and equipment such as computers,
mobile phones and televisions, are all manufactured with adaptations that make them
automatically accessible to blind and partially sighted people.
Hadi says: "Just think of all those channels available on television now. Why can't
a set come with inbuilt technology so the programme times can be spoken, rather than
read?" Televisions and all white goods are excluded from existing disability discrimination
law, she points out.
The current law also lets down blind and partially sighted people over equal access
to transport, which governs their mobility. By 2009, all buses in London will be
equipped with audiovisual announcements, where recorded information about destinations
and stops is relayed to passengers.
Nationally, all new trains built after 1998 are meant by law to have audiovisual
information in their carriages. But while the Disability Discrimination Act 2005
states that all trains have to have these systems in place no later than 2020, the
order needed to bring that provision into force has not yet appeared.
There is also no statutory enforcement system in place if the audiovisual systems
on public transport have not been turned on or are broken, says Sharpe. She says:
"This is all about giving people equality of opportunity. If you can't rely on a
service, then it undermines confidence, and lack of confidence becomes as much a
barrier to mobility as a physical barrier."
Another barrier regularly faced by guide dog owners is persuading taxis to accept
their custom even though they are legally entitled to travel with their dogs under
the Private Hire Vehicle Bill 2000.
Urban planners' current fashion to create "naked streets" - where kerbs are taken
away and the distinction between street and road disappears - is possibly the most
serious threat to the mobility of blind and partially sighted people, according to
Sharpe.
"Kerbs are the single navigational tool for blind and partially sighted people."
Access to transport is one of the biggest barriers preventing people who are blind
or partially sighted getting into employment.
Sharpe says: "It's fundamental otherwise they don't have access to pathways to employment
and lifestyle choices." Last year, the charity Action for Blind People supported
more than 1,000 blind or partially sighted people on the road to employment, 230
of whom found fulltime work. Another 36 people were helped to start up their own
businesses.
Employers' ignorance about the government- funded Access to Work initiative, where
money is available to pay for extra help, adaptations or computer software to support
a blind or partially sighted person in the workplace, is a major stumbling block
in getting people back into work, according to Stephen Remington the charity's chief
executive.
Employers, like the general public, also make false assumptions about what people
are capable of if they are partially sighted or blind, he says.
"A lot of employers take the stereotypical view that, if you have a visual impairment,
you can only be a telephonist or work in a factory. But I think they need to turn
that opinion on its head and the question they should be asking themselves is 'Think
of a job which a visually impaired person cannot do.'"
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So


and in America as follows through the American Federation of the Blind based off of NYC. Statistical Snapshots - American Foundation for the Blind


note: people want to know why the blind hate the world huh? We don't get treated like human beings. I have ran across canadian, american and british people that hate this inequality. Nobody cares at all. Trifels and morons like others on this site are examples of this discrimination. Well, I have a few words f you if you hate us. We are animals I guess without feelings, eotions or even a livelyhood. Equality for the disabilities is a joke, In Britain, you hire less blind people than in America. How does that make you feel? Are you proud? Are you happy you bafoons? Your not civilized at all nor is most americans.

Well sorry Sith but your disability is nowhere near as important as us all living in some kind of multicultural utopia. Your disability is just not fashionable enough for us to throw money at.

Have you thought about becoming a black muslim lesbian? That's much more fashionable and as such would allow us to hurl tons of money at your problems.