The Power is with the People

On 28th June 2010 at Glastonbury Music Festival, Stevie Wonder interrupted his finale song to make the following announcement:

“As one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace, I want you to encourage the World to make the World more Accessible for those who are physically challenged. Make it more Accessible.”

“Let there be nowhere that I can’t go being blind or one can’t go being deaf or someone can’t go being paraplegic or quadriplegic. Make it Accessible so that we can all celebrate the World as you can.”

So how accessible is your World at the moment? What can you do to make it more accessible?

For disabled people and others with access needs like parents with babies and young children, and older people whose mobility, sight or hearing may be not as good as it was, accessibility is an issue.

To me, you have 4 choices:

1. Do nothing – and many do just that.
2. Get up a petition and take it to Number 10.
3. Sue companies using The Equality Act, formerly the DDA.
4. My preferred choice - take your business, and therefore your money, to businesses that are suitably accessible for your needs.

Consider the scenario of two cafes A and B next door to each other on the high street. Café A has level access and a wide door. It has a sign on the window saying they have an accessible toilet and a hearing induction loop. When you go in, you find at the bottom of the menu a message stating the menu is available in large print.

Café B has none of these. Where would you take your business and where would you recommend others to go?

Last year, a new website called AccessiblePlaces.Net was launched where you can tell others how well your needs were met when you went to Café A. When others see your review and recognize they too have similar needs, guess where they will go?

Café B is soon going to go out of business unless they make access improvements.

As a result of people using the power of the knowledge they have and sharing it through AccessiblePlaces.Net, we can make the World more Accessible.

Go on line to AccessiblePlaces.Net and submit a review, or if you'd rather send in our review form, send an email to steve@accessiblebusiness.co.uk and we’ll send one to you.

Steve "WheelchairSteve" Wilkinson