#NewzHook2020- Top Accessibility Initiatives of 2020

Here’s a round up of all the top news developments in the accessibility space for the year. In the midst of the anxiety and hardships, some organisations and people did an admirable job in ensuring that their initiatives were inclusive in every sense of the word.

Undeniably Covid affected people’s lives in a major way in 2020, those of persons with disabilities even more so. In the initial weeks, access to information about the virus and ways to stay safe was critically absent.

Accessibility consulting firm BarrierBreak took a major step when it ensured that all important notifications by the central and state government were rendered into an accessible format and shared on the Newz Hook website, thus playing a critical role in ensuring that information reached out to the community at large.

Staying with Covid, Vinaychandran B S, a Kerala-based ISL interpreter took the lead and approached the World Health Organisation to launch an Indian Sign Language course on Covid This enabled India’s deaf and hard of hearing community to get answers to critical questions about the infection.

The Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru is going all out to ensure that art and culture is accessible to people across disability types. It held the Art (is) Life festival in December, an online seven-day-long event with talks, performances, and exhibitions. One of the key elements of this online festival is the accessibility features for people with disabilities.

Staying with art and heritage, Jadavpur University student Subhradeep Chatterjee launched The Ephemeriad Project, an online museum of collectibles and memorabilia accessible to visually impaired people.

And finally this year on World Disability Day Patna got its first accessible cafe for people with disabilities. The Downtown Cafe has for a makeover with ramps and Braille menus and there are plans to have sign language interpreters too.

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