FEATURED ARTICLE
Access Consulting meets Community Consulting by Jenna Cohen
Jenna works as a Senior Associate at Loop Architecture, Melbourne and has recently started access and community consulting through Honeycomb Access & Design (www.honeycombaccess.com.au). Jenna is also a member of the Victorian Access Committee under the Australian Institute of Architects. Contact: jenna@honeycombaccess.com.au
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n my past life, I was the co-founder of Flying Fox, an organisation that provides social experiences for young people with disability. Through that experience, I worked alongside and developed friendships with hundreds of young people with diverse backgrounds, interests, abilities and diagnoses. Over the last 15 years I have developed a passion for combating the
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exclusionary practices of society and to do as much as I can to promote inclusion. A few months ago, I went shopping with a friend for some new bathers. This friend has high support needs; she is blind, non-verbal and uses a wheelchair. Together we picked out a few different bathers to try, but when we reached the change rooms there were no accessible spaces where my friend, her wheelchair and I could fit to try on the bathers. This problem is easily avoidable. By having one accessible change room, my friend and I would have been treated as equal, valuable members of society who are entitled to shop for a quality pair of bathers, just like anyone else. Every day I see my friends being excluded from full participation in all that society has to offer
THE MAGAZINE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTANTS IN ACCESS AUSTRALIA
