Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences
Sisters of Frida’s Guide to Accessible Online communication – a Toolkit
Disabled people have equal rights to participate fully in all aspects of life. However, we are often obstructed by lack of access, ignorance and poor attitudes. This isn’t simply an inconvenience for disabled people, it can be a matter of life or death.
Lack of access prevents us from having control over our lives and is a stark reminder to disabled people that our rights and our value as human beings can be so easily disregarded.
Accessible and inclusive environments for disabled people create a better experience for everyone. However, accessibility is rarely made standard unless non-disabled people recognise that it benefits them too – for example, dropped kerbs and step-free access that improves access for parents with prams, and the recent dramatic increase in subtitled videos online.
If disabled people are not expected and not thought about from the start, then the resulting design or format will exclude people who may wish to take part and have a right to do so.
Throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, disabled and non-disabled people alike, have increased their online communications, through a range of platforms. Accessible information and inclusive communication is important for everyone but it is especially vital for our independent living. It also makes it possible for us to chat, campaign and communicate with our peers, friends, family and colleagues, nationally and internationally.
Description: 5 women in an online platform, text from the close caption reads Tricia Malowney ” bit. We share the load a little bit and if we can just keep chipping away so we can convince the feminist movement. That we are part of their community. We are not an add-on that everything that they do..”
This document provides information on disabled people’s rights and the action you can take to create accessible and inclusive information and events online. This is not an exhaustive guide but we have tried to add resources from around the world. There are many online platforms for events and meetings and we have not covered all these but reference some throughout.
In this toolkit, we added the importance of realising our rights as well as following the Social Model of Disability with the accessibility aspects. We hope it will be useful and do drop us a line if other information or tips can be added at hello@sisofrida.org.
The toolkit is available here as a Word document
Sisters of Frida’s Guide to Accessible Online communication – a Toolkit
and as a PDF
Sisters of Frida’s Guide to Accessible Online communication – a Toolkit
We thank London Community Foundation for the funding to make this possible. And Dr Natasha Hirst @HirstPhotos and Eleanor Lisney @e_lisney for researching and writing this toolkit.
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