Hi, blog friends! It's Karen Letchworth here today posting a sweet card I created with some of favorite supplies from Really Reasonable Ribbon. What I love most about Really Reasonable Ribbon is that I can take a simple patterned paper and easily turn it into something SUPER special simply by adding some of their lovely ribbons and trims. I had a lot of fun making this card doing just that.
I started with two patterned papers and a journalling card from a lovely line called This & That by Echo Park that I inked and machine stitched. Once I had my patterned papers ready, I added some buttons to the button card. Then, I laid a strip of Brown Center Stitch Burlap and a length of Cream Seam Binding. I tied a double bow using the Cream Seam Binding and some Brown Sugar Baker's Twine. I also added a Coral Open End Rose and two Two-Toned Chocolate Brown Open End Roses.
Really Reasonable Ribbon has so many lovely trims and goodies to adorn your cards and projects. There's also a fun challenge going on where you can share your ribbon-topped creations. We love seeing your art, and we welcome you to play along. Thanks for stopping by today!
Karen, this is gorgeous. Love the way you put this together.


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CiteScore 2021: 1.5 ℹCiteScore:
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Efficient Methods for Arsenic Removal from Groundwater
G. Badalians Gholikandi | H.R. Orumieh | R. Riahi
1Power and Water University of Technology (PWUT), Water Research Institute (WRI), Tehran, Iran
Pars Arianab Consulting Engineers, Esfahan, Iran
Water Research Institute (WRI), Water and Wastewater Research Center (WWRC), Tehran, Iran
https://doi.org/10.2495/SAFE-V1-N3-326-342
| Citation
sse010307f.pdf
https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/sse-volumes/1/3/561
Arsenic may be found in water that has flowed through arsenic-rich rocks. Arsenic is a toxic, trace element that is ubiquitous in nature. It can easily be transported from the sediment to the surrounding pore-water. Severe health effects have been observed in populations drinking arsenic-rich water over long periods in countries worldwide. A 2007 study found that over 137 million people in more than 70 countries are probably affected by arsenic poisoning of drinking water. In groundwater, arsenic combines with oxygen to form inorganic pentavalent arsenate and trivalent arsenite. Most arsenic treatments fall into four process categories: ion exchange, membrane process, adsorption, or chemical precipitation. This study investigates the potential of removing arsenic from groundwater by using two process categories – activated alumina and lime softening. Arsenic adsorption by commercially available activated alumina is surveyed and its efficiency investigated. We have incorporated some of the valuable literature on arsenic remediation by adsorption. According to results of three activated alumina pilot studies, considering influence of adsorption time, temperature, pH, alumina quantity, arsenic concentration, and different alumina production resources, it has high efficiency for arsenic removal. Adsorption isotherm for both species of arsenic (III and V) is compatible with both Freundlich and Langmuir models (correlation coefficient >0.93). The prevalent pH range for arsenate was between 6 and 8. Modified activated alumina can remove arsenate at the influent pH of 8.1 ± 0.4 to below the maximum concentration level (MCL). The exhausted media passed the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test with respect to arsenic. Lime softening operated within the optimum pH range of more than 10.5 is likely to provide a high percentage of arsenic removal (90%) for influent concentrations of up to 0.05 mg/L. It may be difficult to reduce consistently to 0.01 mg/L by lime softening alone. Systems using lime softening may require secondary treatment to meet that goal.
activated alumina, arsenic contamination, groundwater, removal efficiency, softening
[1] Kurdistan Province Rural Water and Wastewater, Report, 2005.
[2] Haque, A.A.M., Thwe, H.M., Jayasuriya, H.P.W., Hossain, H.Z., Rahman, M., Harun-ur-Rashid, M. & Matsumura, K., Groundwater arsenic contamination: food safety and human health hazards in Bangladesh. Chiang Mai University Journal of Natural Science, 6(2), pp. 321–339. 2007.
[3] World Health Organization (WHO), Arsenic in drinking water, www.who.int/mediacenter/factsheets/fs210/en/index.html. 2010.
[4] World Health Organization, (1996, 1999, 2001), Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality, Arsenic and Arsenic Compounds, Arsenic in Drinking Water, Geneva.
[5] Mohan, D., Pittman Jr., C.U., Arsenic removal from water/wastewater using adsorbents, a critical review, Elsevier, 1–42. 2007.
[6] US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001), Research Plan for Arsenic in Drinking Water - Treatment, Technologies and Costs for Removal of Arsenic from Drinking Water, National Primary Drinking Water Regulation, Offi ce of Ground Water & Drinking Water.
[7] Smedley, P.L., Kinniburg, D.G., A review of the source, behavior and distribution of arsenic in natural waters, Applied Geochemistry 17, pp. 517–568. 2002.
[8] Idswater, ActiGuard AAFS50 Activated Alumina for the Removal of Arsenic from Potable Water, www.idswater.com/water/us/activated_alumina/457/products.html. 2010.
[9] Reynolds, T.D., Richards, P.E., Operational and Process Units in Environmental Engineering. PWS Publishing Company, Boston, London, 2000.
[10] Jain, C.K, Ali, I., Arsenic: Occurrence, Toxity and Speciation Techniques. ater Research 34 (17), pp. 4304–4312. 2000.
[11] Badalians Gholikandi, G., Water Chemistry, 2nd edition, Publ. Nopardazan, Tehran, Iran, 2006.
[12] Vu, K.B., Kaminski, M.D., Nunez, L., Review of Arsenic Removal Technologies for Contaminated Groundwaters, ANL-CMT-03/2, Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois 60439,University of Chicago, USA. 2003.
[13] Johnston, R., Heijnen, H., Safe Water Technology for Arsenic Removal, citeseerx.ist. psu.edu/…/arsenic/…/Mohan_As_removal_adsorbents.pdf. 2002.
[14] Ravenscroft, P, Homepage, Documents. www.rgs.org/.../Arsenic+the+geography+of+a +global+problem.htm, 2010.
[15] Reynolds, T.D., Richards, P.E. (2000), Operational and Process Units in Environmental Engineering, Boston, London: PWS Pub. Co.
[16] Mosaferi, M., Mesdaghinia, A.R., Removal of Arsenic from Drinking Water Using Modifi ed Activated Alumina, Iranian Water and Wastewater Journal, No. 55, Esfahan, Iran. 2005.
[17] Wang, L., Chen, A., Fields, K., Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water by Ion Exchange and Activated Alumina Plants, USEPA/600/R-00/088, Cincinnati, USA. 2000.
[18] Badalians Gholikandi, G., Abbaspour, R., Technical and Financial Analysis of Groundwater Remediation System, Chemical Contaminants Treatment, national research program, PWUT, Tehran, 2006.
[19] APHA., Standard Methods for the Examination of water and wastewater. American Public Health Association: Washington, D. C. 2005.
[20] Badalians Gholikandi, G., Sadrzadeh Ardebili, M., Riahi, R., Orumieh, HR., Arsenic Polluted Groundwater: Epidemiological Study and Effi cient Removal Method, Environmental Health Risk V, Proceeding book, WIT, UK, pp. 133–142, 2009.
[21] Clifford, D., Lin, C.C. (1991), Arsenic III and Arsenic V Removal from Drinking Water in San Ysidro, New Mexico, USEPA/600/2-91/011, Cincinnati, USA.
[22] Clifford, D., Ion Exchange and Inorganic Adsorption. In American Water Works Association (AWWA)(Eds.),Water Quality and Treatment: A Handbook of Community Water Supplies. 5th ed., NY, McGraw-Hill. 1999.
[23] Clifford, D., Rosenblum, E., The Equilibrium Arsenic Capacity of Activated Alumina, USEPA CR-807939-02, Cincinnati, USA. 1982.
[24] Fox, K., Field Experience with Point-of-Use Treatment Systems for Arsenic Removal, J. AWWA, pp.94–101. 1989.
[25] UStoday Arsenic in drinking water seen as threat, http://www.ustoday.com/news/ world/2007-08-30-553404631_x.htm, 2007.
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Q: ResourceNotFoundException: Stream not found under account This question is similar to this question and this question but could not be solved by their answers.
I am trying to create a simple stream in AWS using kinesis firehose to stream data to s3 buckets. Both stream and bucket are located at us-east-1 as specified at this post.
Then I created an user with all possible inline policies available to kinesis (specially PutRecord). I double checked that the region is the same for the bucket and the stream, and double checked the stream name.
After aws configure on my computer I have tried to run:
aws kinesis put-record --stream-name my-stream-name --data file://payload.json --partition-key 1

But I receive ResourceNotFoundException ... Stream my-stream-name under account ... not found.
I've been trying to figure out what can be the issue for days and honestly I am out of ideas after searching everywhere and rebuilding the stream so many times for multiple regions, users and policies.
Anyone has had this issue before and manage solve it? Any ideas of what can be missing? Any suggestions of tutorials doing a simple stream from python -> kinesis -> s3 that I can try?
Thank you all !

A: You are using "kinesis data stream" APIs to ingest record to "kinesis firehose". Thats why you are getting resource not found exception, because it is looking under kinesis data stream resources
Try this one -
aws firehose put-record --delivery-stream-name <value> --record <value>

firehose put-record

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I've been looking at these and am intrigued. I've used TomToms in the past but currently use a gps app on my iPhone. Does anyone have experience with these? I'm also wondering what opinions you might have about the relative size of the devices. A 6 inch screen ( on the 600 ) sounds nice but I'm wondering if that might be a little too big on your dash.
There is quite a learning curve for the new models (Go 500/600) and the Go 50/60 series compared with previous devices. While most of the newer devices (referred to as Nav4 models) come with lifetime maps and traffic, the trade-off is less functionality than on earlier devices.
You do have (again) Itinerary Planning.
I do have an earlier model with a 6" screen. With my crappy eyes, I don't mind it at all.
My impression from what I've read is that since these devices require you to pair them through an app to a smartphone for traffic and speed/redlight camera info is that some features have been reduced or eliminated altogether. I guess they feel you can use your phone for certain things that they don't need to include on the device to keep things simplified. Not a totally bad idea since I did find navigating through all the menu screens of my former devices ( a 720 and 930 ) cumbersome. I've also read and hope to be true that the software for updating the devices is simpler and less problematic than the prior versions I had used and may add in some of the functions you mentioned.
One of the issues I have with the gps app I use on my phone is legibility as well as a few less than satisfactory traffic encounters. I'm hoping that the text on these new TomToms would be much easier to see and read even on the 5" version. And that the live traffic function would be more satisfactory.
The text is NOT easier to read since there isn't much contrast in colours. The best thing for you to do is go and visit a store where they are on display to get a feel for the device.
I'll try to check them out in a store, but that is disappointing.
On the description at Amazon, they talk about 'My Places', is this the substitute for personal POIs?
No. My Places will include stuff like 'Home', 'Recent Destinations' and 'Marked Locations'. Custom pois can't be implemented in those models as of yet.
My main reason for looking at the TomTom is because I want to be able to input custom POIs or POIs someone else has created, namely waterfalls. In the past on my old 720 I found the TomTom did a better job of navigating by coordinates than my Garmin. I wonder what is the latest model that DOES support custom POIs?
I can't think of a Garmin Nuvi model that doesn't support Custom POIs.
Does the current "Basic" line, i.e., Start and Via, support personal, custom POIs?
If your talking about the Garmin Nuvi, the answer is yes.
Start and Via are TT models. Don't believe either support custom POIs ... TT seem to have removed that ability from their current line up.


Dear Grade 4 parents, as you may be aware, our school board provides two French Second Language pathways in Grades 4-6. Please click the following FRENCH PATHWAYS OCSB link for more information on which French pathway you feel would best meet your child's needs in Grade 4. Forms will be provided to you by your home room teacher. There will also be an information night at St.Theresa School for Grade 3 and 6 parents. Date to be announced.


This year as asset managers find new investment opportunities that stay ahead of geopolitical uncertainty and market volatility, they are also developing new paths to scale and grow their firms. All the while, rapidly evolving new tools like artificial intelligence and predictive technologies are impacting the demands and requirements of the talent pool. How can fund managers pick the right strategies and people necessary to build a world-class investment team? How do fund managers view the relative role of humans versus computers in their business as new technologies continue to transform the investment industry? What are specific examples of how new technologies, including data analytics, have transformed strategies not only for investing but building out their company and brand? How can managers think about growing your business in the face of capacity constraints? What strategies can asset managers implement to maintain steady growth, even in times of geopolitical uncertainty? How do human capital issues like training and retaining the best talent, be solved?


Abstract The recently introduced PROGRESA program in Mexico can be interpreted as having multiple objectives, namely, (i) the alleviation of current poverty through the transfer of cash payments to poor households, and (ii) encouraging the accumulation of human capital by these households through the conditioning of these transfers on attendance at school and health centers. The latter can also be interpreted in terms of generating a sustained decrease in poverty over time. In this report we are concerned solely with the first objective. To date, the analysis of the welfare impact of these transfers has essentially been undertaken within a partial equilibrium framework which focuses exclusively on the direct effect of the transfers on the beneficiaries. In this report we emphasize the need to take a general equilibrium perspective of the program. In particular, we focus in on the indirect welfare effects which arise from the need to finance the program domestically. This focus is motivated by the belief that any credible poverty alleviation strategy must have underlying it a credible financing strategy.


I have successfully pitched to local and national media outlets, ranging from the Albany Times Union, where I blog, to The Christian Science Monitor, MSNBC.com, E! Online, Newsweek, The LA Times, and others.
Working as a blogger and journalist for the past eight years provided me with insight on how to pitch successfully. Proceed with the knowledge that you will only succeed in pitching if you persist. If you do not, these tips are useless.
If you can't tell a reporter who you are and what you're pitching in less than a paragraph, they're moving on.
I mumble, so it is important that I tell journalists to contact me through email to ensure clarity.
Clearly state in your email how the reporter can contact you. Your email signature is useless.
1) Establish the connection. The advantage always goes to the local connection.
2) Who you are (and why we should care). There are too many "experts" today, why are you different?
Fact: For every ten emails you send, you will yield (maybe) one reply. Just keep going.
When I first started pitching, I used to copy and paste press releases. Boy was that stupid. Although time consuming, your emails need to be personalized.
Also: Don't bother with the "blind" press release. Have one ready, but do not send the press release with your initial contact.
Business stories go to business editors. Do not cross the streams.
Also: Do not contact reporters if there is a designated editor for the area you are pitching. The editors give the assignments to the reporters (in most cases.) If you pitch to a reporter, they have to pitch the story to the editor anyway.
Only contact the reporter if contact information is not available for the editor.
Do not send links. Your email must be self contained. If there is interest, you can provide further information later. Linking out says you're lazy and didn't care enough to pitch yourself.
You may have an opportunity to pitch your story in a different way depending on the reporter's reply. So if they say they can't use your story as pitched but leave the door open, you can (briefly) re-pitch.
Be Polite. Even If The Reporter Is Not.
Some reporters are asses. If you are rejected or if you receive a nasty rejection, brush it off.
What's that saying about arguing on the Internet?
After a week, you may send one brief note to inquire about your pitch. If you do not hear anything, the second week you may call. Do not call until you've waited the appropriate amount of time.
If you are unsuccessful, move on.
Do not contact reporters for every announcement. Wait until you have something groundbreaking. How do you know if you have one? Talk to your friends beyond the world of blogging and ask for their opinion. If they're interested, you may proceed. Think about the average person, not techies.
Make friends with reporters. This may be the difference between getting your story covered and getting ignored. How? Make friends. There is no secret to networking. I am embarrassingly shy in person, but I've managed to make contacts with different newspaper reporters because of my field of work. You just need to keep your eyes and ears open for an opportunity to make friends.
Media coverage breeds media coverage. Once you have an outlet reporting what you're doing, it lends you credibility to advance to the next level.
For example, this is my current plan for promoting my Twitter Novel: Glens Falls Post Star (Small), Albany Times Union (Medium), New York Times (Large.) The media outlets higher on the ladder are more interested in items when they were previously covered.
Also: Once you've established media credibility, you can leverage it to approach other outlets. Hold off on television and radio until you've hit the newspapers.
News directors at other media outlets follow the newspaper and may contact you if they like what they see.
Always let them make the first contact. It's an ego thing.
Seven words or less. Catch their interest.
Sometimes your story makes what you're pitching more interesting. If you can't find a tie within the news, what from your background ties you to the outlet or community?
I am a former Alfred State College student. When I contact media outlets in Western New York, I mention this to help build a connection.
If you went to college, start with the media market that covers your school. Everyone loves "Alumni Doing Awesome" stories.
Do not email the general email accounts.
Find out who covers what, look at their previous stories, and if you can't tie in your pitch or find a local connection, make a pitch about how what you're doing ties into their area of coverage.
This is not a perfect list. Far from it; however, my intention here is to be helpful to my fellow bloggers and relieve some of the stress headaches induced by bloggers for my fellow journalists. Pitch well.


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All Signs for 2019 March 7th
Week of March 7th, 2019
Free Your Body! Love Your Body!
I've gathered together all of the Long-Range, Big-Picture Horoscopes I wrote for you, and bundled them in one place. Go here to read a compendium of your forecasts for 2019.
In addition to these, I've created EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES that go even further in Exploring Your Long-Term Destiny in 2019.
Who do you want to become between now and January 2020? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?
To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, go here.
Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." Choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.
If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture outlook.
Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is $6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week: "This week (Feb 26, 2019)"
Here's a link to my free weekly email newsletter, featuring the Free Will Astrology horoscopes, plus a bunch of other stuff, including good news, lucky advice, and tender rants. It arrives every Tuesday morning.
Read past issues of the newsletter.
Sign up here for your free subscription.
FREE YOUR BODY
Free your body. Don't ruminate and agonize about it. Do it simply and easily. LOVE YOUR BODY!
Be brave and forceful, gentle and graceful. Free your sublimely imperfect, riotously intelligent body. Allow it to be itself in all of its mysterious glory. Love your body exactly as it is.
Praise your body. Thank your body. Tell it you adore its uncanny majesty . . . you yearn to learn more of its secrets . . . you promise to treat it as your beloved ally.
Be in love with your body—no shame, no apology. Be in awe of your body's unfathomable power to endlessly carry out the millions of chemical reactions that keep you alive and thriving.
How can you not be overwhelmed with reverence for your hungry, curious, resourceful, unpredictable body?
Study your body's magic. Exult in the blessings it bestows on you. Celebrate and beautify its fierce animal elegance.
Homework: Talk about the time a breakdown mutated into a breakthrough; or a spiritual emergency evolved into a spiritual emergence; or a scary trial led to a sacred trail.
YOUR TITLES?
Please let me know if you are deserving of any of the following titles. (I will alert the proper accreditation committee.)
• Empathy Master with Extraordinary Compassion
• Perfect Embodiment of Feisty Wisdom and Cute Boldness
• Eternal Reservoir of Smart Eros
• World's Most Practical Idealist with Flexible Strategies
• Humankind's Greatest Genius of Intimacy
• Jaunty Healer with Encyclopedic Knowledge of the Soul's Ways
• Greatest Lyrical Therapist Who Humanizes Machines and Machine Consciousness
• Hero or Heroine from the Triumphant Future
• Power Incarnate with Endless Creativity to Foster Social Justice
• Greatest Humble Person Who Ever Lived
• Ecstatic Saint Who Expresses Absurd Amounts of Magnanimity and Generosity
• Most Humorous Leader Who Makes Everyone Laugh for Righteous and Healing Reasons
• World's Greatest Struggler and Happiest Sufferer
• Tricky Joy-Summoner
• Lyrical Perceiver Who Sees Impossible But True Sights
• Master of Conversing with Stones, Wind, and "Inanimate" "Objects"
• Lode-Star Inspiratrix of the Quest to Preserve Medicinal Nonsense
• Blithe, Breezy Power Incarnate
• Trickster Feminist Spell-Caster of Total Life Enjoyment
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FEARFUL FANTASIES AND ACCURATE INTUITIONS
For more of my views on the difference between fearful fantasies and accurate intuitions, GO HERE.
WE COME FROM DUST
We come from dust. To dust we will return. That's why I don't dust my shelves. It could be someone I know. MORE.
DADDY WITCH
For many years, while plying my trades as a writer and musician, I also pursued a third calling as Daddy Witch -- which involved me helping to care for my daughter Zoe and her best friend Max.
For more about the good news stories below, plus links to the articles that provide full evidence, GO HERE.
1. Global suicide rates have dropped by 38% since 1994, saving four million lives, four times the number killed in combat during the same time.
2. According to the UNDP, 271 million people in India moved out of poverty since 2015, and the country's poverty rate has been cut nearly in half.
3. India also continued the largest sanitation building spree of all time. More than 80 million toilets are estimated to have been built since 2014.
4. The International Energy Agency said that in the last year, 120 million people gained access to electricity. That means that for the first time since electrical service was started (1882), less than a billion of the world's population are left in darkness.
5. A new report showed that the global fertility rate (average number of children a woman gives birth to) has halved since 1950. Half the world's countries are now below replacement levels.
6. Bangladesh revealed that it had reduced its child mortality rate by 78% since 1990, the largest reduction by any country in the world.
7. Remember how the global media worked itself into a frenzy over Cape Town's water shortages and Day Zero in 2017? Strangely, nobody reported in 2018 how Cape Town successfully averted the crisis.
8. Respiratory disease death rates in China have fallen by 70% since 1990, thanks to rising incomes, cleaner cooking fuels, and better healthcare.
9. The share of black men in poverty in the United States fell from 41% in 1960 to 18% today, and their share in the middle class rose from 38% to 57% in the same time.
10. A new global youth survey showed that young people in all countries are more optimistic than adults. Nine in 10 teenagers in Kenya, Mexico, China, Nigeria, and India reported feeling positive about their future.
WHAT'S MY RELATIONSHIP WITH INTUITION?
The quirky and elegant Conduit magazine did a ten-page interview with me. Here's a brief excerpt:
CONDUIT: Can you talk about your relationship with intuition?
ROB BREZSNY: One reliable source of intuition is formulating good questions and having an intention behind the questions: "What is it that I need to learn today?", "What is it that I need to learn to live my life better?", "What is it that I need next to write my book?"
My sense is that intuition often reveals what you need to do next, although not necessarily the big picture. And if we're content with not pressuring intuition to always give us a mountaintop perspective, but rather just to answer for us, "What happens next? What do I need to do next?", I think that's a better relationship with intuition.
Four more things I'll mention about intuition: Working with dreams is fraught with the possibility of descending into chaos, but with practice and the development of skills, it can become a crucial source of intuition. I really value my ability to do one of the primary Jungian practices, which is shadow work -- dealing with those aspects of me that are unripe and dumb. Dreams have been crucial in helping me unlock the magic of dealing with my shadow and transforming my shadow.
Another good practice for intuition is to ask the question, "What does my death say?" On one's deathbed, what does one want to look back at and say, "That was important. That was important. That was important. No, that wasn't so important." So one's death can be a tonic informant that helps intuition really focus and come into maximum usefulness.
The other thing is that intuition is aided immeasurably by moving, by walking. I don't know if that's true for everybody. Walks and nature are important for me being able to tune into intuition that turns out to be useful and enduring. So often I'll take a notebook with me, or a recorder with me, to capture those intuitions that come to me while I'm walking.
There's one other thing. The practice of intuition takes place best when you have gone as far as you can with your intellect. In other words, I can't skip the stage of the process of research, of thinking hard, of using my logic, of being reasonable. That's crucial for generating intuition that's accurate and useful.
And once I've done the research, once I've tried to think my way to being as objective as possible -- and that involves using the scientific method -- then I hand it over to intuition and say, "Well, what more can you tell me, given that I've come this far with all this analysis? What can you add to it?"
WHAT DO I MEAN BY "FREE WILL" ASTROLOGY?
Here's more of the interview that Conduit magazine did with me.
CONDUIT: Can you say what you mean by "Free Will Astrology"? It sounds like an oxymoron.
ROB BREZSNY: My approach to astrology is quite different from a lot of mainstream astrologers. I'm not alone in that. There are a few colleagues who share what I might call an allergy to how traditional astrology is practiced. I already had that allergy when I was young, when I first began writing the column many years ago.
Back then, I didn't like astrology columns, and I didn't like a lot of the ways astrology was practiced. Then as now, astrology in the hands of many practitioners tends to make people afraid of the future, fills them with ideas about there being some sort of fixed destiny that they're being pulled toward and that they're helpless to resist. That kind of thinking was and still is repulsive to me.
I didn't like astrology columns, because they were watered-down versions of the complex art of astrology, which was practiced, after all, by seminal psychologist Carl Jung.
So when I first got the opportunity to write an astrology column -- I was dirt poor and didn't have a job -- I decided if somebody's going to do it, it might as well be me, someone who's trained in poetry, loves language, and respects the free will of the people who might be my audience.
The bedrock of my practice has always been the idea that the planets may impel, but they don't compel. A study of the configurations of planets shows us the archetypal forces that are coalescing, dissolving, and becoming active in our lives. That can instruct us on how to use our free will to best activate the best versions of those archetypal forces as they coalesce and dissolve.
So for me, "free will astrology" conveys the notion that we have far more power than we might imagine over the way that we express the bigger forces that are at work in our lives.
My aspiration is not to condemn my readers to a particular fate that they can't avoid, but rather to show them the options that are available: the higher level, the mid-level, and the low-level ways in which they might express the archetypal forces, and to nudge them in the direction of finding where the highest-level expression of those forces might be.
HOW I GOT STARTED IN THE BEAUTY AND TRUTH BUSINESS
For more of my description about how I got started writing my column "Free Will Astrology," GO HERE.
SUFFERING COMPETITION?
A stranger who had read my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia came up to me at a party and sneered, "You haven't suffered enough to have earned the right to be an optimist. It's easy to have a rosy outlook, like you have, when your life has been so easy and peachy."
I didn't respond, because it's my policy not to take trolls seriously. But in case anyone out there is wondering whether I've experienced sufficient pain to have earned credibility as an optimist: the answer is yes, I have.
I'll be glad to provide a résumé of my suffering to the Credentials Committee, upon request.
And by the way, how are you doing with your suffering?
1. New Zealand became the second country in the world (after the Philippines) to pass legislation granting victims of domestic violence 10 days paid leave.
2. Scotland became the first nation in the world to guarantee free sanitary products to all students, and India's finance ministry announced it would scrap the 12% GST on all sanitary products.
3. Canada became the second country in the world to legalize marijuana. A major crack in the grass ceiling, and a wonderful moment for fans of evidence-based decision making everywhere.
4. In a major milestone for human rights in the Middle East, a Lebanese court issued a new judgment holding that homosexuality is not a crime.
5. Trinidad and Tobago's high court ruled that the Caribbean nation's colonial-era law banning gay sex was unconstitutional.
6. Tunisia became the first Arab nation to pass a law giving women and men equal inheritance, overturning an old provision of Sharia Islamic law.
7. Pakistan's parliament passed a landmark law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens and outlawing all forms of discrimination by employers.
8. Scotland became the first country in the world to include teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex rights into its state school curriculum.
9. Nepal became the 54th country in the world, and the first country in South Asia, to pass a law banning corporal punishment for children.
10. Quietly and unannounced, humanity crossed a truly amazing threshold in 2018. For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty.
GENTLY UPROARIOUS REMINDER
I'll remind you who you are: You're an immortal freedom fighter who longs to liberate all sentient creatures from their suffering. You're a fun-loving messiah who wants to help your fellow messiahs claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright.
Remember: you're a vortex of fluidic light that has temporarily taken on the form of a human; you agreed to experience amnesia about your true origins.
That's why you're such an indomitable creator and crucial collaborator in our 14-billion-year campaign to bring heaven all the way down to earth.
I'm not speaking metaphorically. You are a mutant deity in disguise—not a Buddha or a Christ exactly, but conjured from the same fire. You have been around since the beginning of time and will be here after the end.
Every day, you're getting better at playing the preposterously amusing master game we all dreamed up together before the Big Bang bloomed.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER SAYS . . .
Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
~Barbara Kingsolver
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise, ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life.
It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.
If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.
Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.
There are days when I am envious of my hens: when I hunger for a purpose as perfect and sure as a single daily egg.
Check out my Instagram page.
THREE SPIRITUAL TASKS
Here are three spiritual tasks I'm working on:
2. to be discerning as I protect myself from people's flaws while at the same time being generous as I celebrate their beauty;
3. to refrain from dividing the world into two groups, those who help and agree with me and those who don't.
Imagine you hear these words: "I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you . . . There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love . . . I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me."
(written by Elizabeth Gilbert)
1. After five successful, annual rounds of large-scale, school-based deworming across Kenya, worm-related diseases have fallen from 33.4% in 2012 to 3% today.
2. Russians are drinking and smoking less than at any point since the fall of the Soviet Union, with tobacco use down by 20% since 2009, and alcohol consumption down by 20% since 2012.
3. Tanzania revealed that in the last ten years, it has reduced the malaria death rate by 50% in adults and 53% in children.
4. The WHO certified Paraguay as having eliminated malaria, the first country in the Americas to be granted this status since Cuba in 1973.
5. Costa Rica's Supreme Court ruled that the country's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, and gave the government 18 months to change it.
6. New research revealed that in the last two decades, female genital mutilation has fallen from 57.7% to 14.1% in north Africa, from 73.6% to 25.4% in west Africa, and from 71.4% to 8% in east Africa.
7. India's highest court struck down a century-old prohibition on homosexual sex, calling the Victorian-era law "irrational, indefensible, and manifestly arbitrary."
8. Morocco passed a landmark law that criminalizes violence against women, and imposes harsh penalties on perpetrators.
9. Germany released new figures showing that more than 300,000 refugees have now found jobs, and the share of MPs with migrant backgrounds has risen from 3% to 9% in the last two elections.
DEAR READERS: I'm wildly grateful for all the support you provided in response to my request for help in the last two weeks! It was exciting to feel you express your love for my work in such a practical way. May the blessings you delivered to me be returned to you threefold!
Of course, I'm still open to further assistance! If you'd care to donate, visit my Virtual Tip Jar at Paypal. (Use the "Friends and Family" option.)
Time for LOVE!!
"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out."
"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal."
"You are my inspiration and my folly. You are my light across the sea, my million nameless joys, and my day's wage. You are my divinity, my madness, my selfishness, my transfiguration and purification. You are my rapscallionly fellow vagabond, my tempter and star. I want you."
"I love you between shadow and soul. I love you as the plant that hasn't bloomed yet, and carries hidden within itself the light of flowers. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. Because of you, the dense fragrance that rises from the earth lives in my body, rioting with hunger for the eternity of our victorious kisses."
"Be my ruckus, my perfect non-sequitur. Be my circuit-breaker, my lengthening shadows at dusk, my nest of pine needles, my second-story window. Be my if-you-stare-long-enough-you'll-see. Be my subatomic particle. Be my backbeat, my key of C minor, my surly apostle, my scandalous reparté, my maximum payload. Be my simmering, seething, flickering, radiating, shimmering, and undulating."
—Andrew Varnon
"Love is the only game where two can play and both win."
—Erma Freesman.
When I think of you,
fireflies in the marsh rise
like the soul's jewels,
lost to eternal longing,
abandoning my body
"Love is a great beautifier."
Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don't stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies.
—Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat
"The air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. The merest whisper of your name awakes in me a shuddering sixth sense. I am longing for a kiss that makes time stand still."
—a blend of words from Edgar Allan Poe, Pamela Moore, and John Keats
"We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are the stones."
"I love you more than it's possible to love anyone. I love you more than love itself. I love you more than you love yourself. I love you more than God loves you. I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the history of the universe. In fact, I love you *more* than I love you."
"For a relationship to stay alive, love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining."
"Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind. When I hold you, I hold everything that is–swans, volcanoes, river rocks, maple trees drinking the fragrance of the moon, bread that the fire adores. In your life I see everything that lives."
"Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity."
"Let's heat up the night to a boil. Let's cook every drop of liquid out of our flesh till we sizzle, not a drop of come left. We are pots on too high a flame. Our insides char and flake dark like sinister snow idling down. We breathe out smoke. We die out and sleep covers us in ashes. We lie without dreaming, empty as clean grates. Yet we wake rebuilt, clattering and hungry as waterfalls leaping off, rushing into the day, roaring our bright intentions. It is the old riddle in the Yiddish song, what can burn and not burn up, a passion that gives birth to itself every day."
For more about the good news stories below, plus links to the articles that provide full evidence, go here: https://tinyurl.com/ya8kb4rh
1. India registered a 22% decline in maternal deaths since 2013. That means on average, 30 more new mothers are now being saved every day compared to five years ago.
2. Ghana became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to eliminate trachoma. In 2000, it threatened 2.8 million people (15% of the population) with blindness.
3. The WHO revealed that teenage drinking has declined across Europe, the continent with the highest rates of drinking in the world. The country with the largest decline? Britain.
4. Since 2010, global HIV/AIDS infection rates have fallen by 16% in adults and by 35% for children. Most countries are now on track to eliminate infections by 2030.
5. In 2018, New York and Virginia became the first two US states to enact laws requiring mental health education in schools.
6. Malaysia became the first country in the Western Pacific to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.
7. South Africa, home to the world's largest population of people living with HIV, shocked health officials by revealing a 44% decline in new infections since 2012.
8. 25 million doses of a new cholera vaccine were administered globally, and preparations began for the largest vaccination drive in history.
9. France revealed a sharp fall in daily smokers, with one million fewer lighting up in the past year, and cigarette use among Americans dropped to its lowest level since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started collecting data in 1965.
10. Rwanda became the first low-income country to provide universal eye care to all of its citizens, by training 3,000 nurses in over 500 health clinics.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ANYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO BE
You don't have to be anything you don't want to be. You don't have to live up to anyone's expectations.
There's no need to strive for a kind of perfection that's not very interesting to you.
You don't have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented.
You don't have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling.
EACH OF US IS A BLEND
Each one of us is a blend of life and death. In the most literal sense, our bodies always contain old cells that are dying and new cells that are emerging as replacements.
From a more metaphorical perspective, our familiar ways of seeing and thinking and feeling are constantly atrophying, even as fresh modes emerge. Both losing and winning are woven into every day; sinking down and rising up; shrinking and expanding.
In any given phase of our lives, one or the other polarity is often more pronounced. But sometimes they are evenly balanced; the Seasons of Rot and of Regeneration happen at the same time.
Where are you at in the cycle right now?
Photo of me in the desert surrounded by Love
ENRICHING OUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Many of us don't always know what we feel. We may have a vivid sense that we feel something, but we're not sure what it is. That's why musicians, writers, actors, and other creative people play such a crucial role in our emotional lives. Their work can help us articulate the enigmas fermenting within us.
But here's the problem: A majority of the artists who are easiest for us to find aren't exceptionally smart or original; they specialize in expressing hackneyed feelings.
Meanwhile, many of the very best creators "remain in relative obscurity because of their resistance to formula efforts," writes journalist Alan Cabal. "Mediocrities latch onto whatever hits and repeat it endlessly in pursuit of cash or celebrity or both." If we look to the latter for illumination, we're cheated.
Proposed experiments:
Get tough with the lazy or wounded part of you that is drawn to the mediocrities.
Compile a roster of virtuosos who have developed a high level of proficiency in extracting esthetically exciting meaning from the fascinating chaos around us.
Expose yourself exclusively to their work, devotedly avoiding the mediocrities' stuff, for a given period, say 30 days. Describe how this transforms you.
SPECIFIC GOALS WORK BEST
"Having very broad and abstract goals may maintain and exacerbate depression. Goals that are not specific are more ambiguous and, therefore, harder to visualize.
"If goals are hard to visualize it may result in reduced expectation of realizing them which in turn results in lower motivation to try and achieve them."
- Researchers at the institute of Health, Psychology, and Society
1. Spain said it would create a new marine wildlife reserve for the migrations of whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean and will prohibit all future fossil fuels exploration in the area.
2. Following "visionary" steps by Belize, UNESCO removed the Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest in the world, from its list of endangered World Heritage Sites.
3. Colombia officially expanded the Serranía de Chiribiquete (also known as The Cosmic Village of the Jaguars) to 4.3 million hectares, making it the largest protected tropical rainforest national park in the world.
4. Mexico said its population of wild jaguars, the largest feline in the Americas, grew by 20% in the past eight years, and 14 Latin American countries signed an agreement to implement a regional conservation program for the big cats through 2030.
5. In the forests of central Africa, the population of mountain gorillas, one of the world's most endangered species, was reported to have increased by 25% since 2010, to over 1,000 individuals.
6. Canada signed another conservation deal with its First Nations people, creating the largest protected boreal forest (an area twice the size of Belgium) on the planet.
7. Chile passed a new law protecting the waters along its coastline, creating nine marine reserves and increasing the area of ocean under state protection from 4.3% to 42.4%.
8. The Seychelles created a new 130,000 square kilometer marine reserve in the Indian Ocean, protecting their waters from illegal fishing for generations to come.
9. New Caledonia agreed to place 28,000 square kilometers of its ocean waters under protection, including some of the world's most pristine coral reefs.
WANT TO GET YOUR ASTROLOGICAL CHART READ?
If you want your personal chart done, I recommend a colleague whose approach to reading astrology charts closely matches my own. She's my wife, RO LOUGHRAN. Her website is here.
Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation. She is skilled at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your connection with your own inner wisdom.
In addition to over 30 years of astrological experience, Ro has been a licensed psychotherapist for 17 years. She integrates psychological insight with astrology's cosmological perspective.
Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.
Check out Ro's website.
YOUR VOWS?
I invite you to speak these vows out loud:
As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and be reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.
I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the abyss, and wilder than the sun.
I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep, excitable, bumbling jumble of desires, but that I am also an immortal four-dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of creation.
I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows, my yeses and noes, my give and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.
I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to the truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my heart — even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of my so-called foibles and wobbles.
Years ago, on a bleak January morning, I unexpectedly found my fortune. While waiting in the food stamp office for my monthly allotment, I grabbed the local newspaper and turned to its help wanted section. "Horoscope columnist needed, $15 a week," it said.
My first reaction was "feh." As a proud practitioner of the art of astrology, I'd always disliked horoscope columns for how they pandered to the superstitious instincts in people.
But on second thought, I mused, why not try to revolutionize the genre, So I dashed off 12 poetic horoscopes and submitted them. Success! So began my surprising career.
Ah! But here's an important caveat: I wrote my Free Will Astrology column for 17 years before it earned me enough money to rise above the poverty line. I'm glad I stuck with it!
"Follow your bliss and the money will come." I believed that quixotic slogan from the moment I first heard it many years ago. And I continued to cling to it even during those long lean eons when I was following my bliss like a madman and cooking my twice-a-day rice and beans on a hot plate in my one-room shack.
Now, at last, having graduated to more sumptuous digs and a more varied diet, I've acquired the wisdom to know that my beloved slogan is incomplete. It should read, "Follow your bliss and the money will come--although it might take 10 or 15 or, hell, even 20 years."
HAVING NO PROBLEMS MAY BE DANGEROUS
It may actually be dangerous to have nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up. That state can stimulate an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might stir up some excitement.
"We should feel excited about the problems we confront and our ability to deal with them," said Robert A. Wilson. "Solving problems is one of the highest and most sensual of all our brain functions."
A MILLION FORMS OF MEDITATION? A BILLION?
Many spiritual teachers say you're most likely to succeed at meditation if you sit quietly in a sanctuary. They believe you need to retreat from the world in order to develop compassionate objectivity about life.
The 18th-century Zen Buddhist teacher Hakuin Ekaku had a different view. "Meditation in the midst of activity is a billion times superior to meditation in stillness" was his motto.
"The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To take seriously each other's vulnerability and fragility and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it. To protect each other, to enact and practice community. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care."
— Johanna Hedva, Sick Woman Theory


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Category: Built
Posted on January 21, 2020 by admin in Built
Essential for individuals with accessibility needs, elderly residents, people with strollers, says Sarah Jones CBC News
A Windsor resident living with cerebral palsy has an ongoing petition with the aim of convincing the city " and residents " to maintain barrier-free sidewalks.
Sarah Jones said she launched her petition in December, explaining that her goal isn't just to make sidewalks safer for individuals living with accessibility needs.
"It's also for elderly and people with young children in strollers," she said. "When the winter comes, Windsor tends to get inaccessible for them, and people tend to not be able to get around."
Jones's Change.org petition currently has almost 430 signatures, with an overall goal of 500.
City 'working away' at snow removal
According to Dwane Dawson, executive director of the City of Windsor's public works department, main roads and all residential roads have been cleared of snow and salted.
"We're working away at areas that were inaccessible during the plowing event," he said.
Dawson also estimated on Monday that it would take at least another 12 hours before the city would be able to clear all snow.
He added that snow in some areas has turned into ice, making it harder for city workers to ensure resident safety.
"It's a pretty slow process not to get those areas chipped away and accessible, so that people that have mobility issues can access the bus stops," Dawson said.
Downtown BIA clearing sidewalks
In Windsor, property owners are responsible for clearing snow along curbs. Additionally, business owners are responsible for clearing snow in front of their storefronts.
Brian Yeomans, chair of the Downtown Windsor BIA, said his organization has undertaken sidewalk clearing as a means of making sidewalks more accessible for "our members, for our visitors, for our clients."
Yeomans said the BIA decided to hire a company to clear sidewalks after a major snowstorm that struck southwestern Ontario in November 2019.
The Downtown Windsor BIA budgeted $20,000 for the 2020 winter season.
Original at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-resident-city-petition-snow-removal-1.5434202
Accessibility Key Issue in Debate Over Sidewalk Snow Plowing
Megan Stacey
Winter weather is striking London as budget tensions hit city council, a combination that's left some Londoners demanding better snow clearing, especially on sidewalks.
Residents and politicians are grappling with what it takes to clear the way " and how fast it should happen " after snow wallops the city.
Accessibility advocates charge that city hall must improve its sidewalk plowing drastically if it wants London to be safe, in particular for older folks, young children, bus riders and those who use walkers, wheelchairs and other equipment such as strollers that must be pushed through the snow.
But it's not cheap.
The proposal: Getting plows, salters and sanders out to do their job earlier, before as much snow has fallen. Specifically, council will mull lowering the threshold that triggers snow clearing on sidewalks from eight to five centimetres, and from 10 to eight cm for residential streets.
The case for better snow clearing: Gerry LaHay is a vocal accessibility advocate who's also a double amputee. He said using a wheelchair helped open his eyes to the perils of snowy, icy sidewalks. Last weekend's snowfall nearly kept him housebound, he said, unable to get down the street to the pharmacy or across the street to a bus stop.
"I'm a pretty stubborn and self-sufficient guy, and pretty damn strong, too. To get stuck in the snow was humiliating," LaHay said.
He's long tweeted about impassable sidewalks and other parts of the city left inaccessible by weather or design. He stresses he's not fighting with city hall " he's trying to find a solution. And he knows the financial pressures in this multi-year budget can complicate the decision.
But for LaHay, it's pretty clear: "You keep the roads clear, and emergency vehicles can get by, and you keep the buses moving " but if I can't get to the bus, what's the point?"
And he takes issue with the idea that better snow clearing is "enhanced service." It's about giving Londoners basic access to their city, he argues.
"Accessibility is an afterthought. We have a long way to go to get to where we need to be. I guess I just don't matter. It doesn't matter how much I'm doing for the community or how I'm trying to run my business, (when it snows), " you're at home for the next week, buddy."
The alternative: Some communities have bylaws that require homeowners to clear the sidewalks themselves. London could go that route, too, though it raises questions about how the rule would be enforced.
The decision: A public meeting on the budget will be held Jan. 23 at city hall at 4 p.m. After that, city politicians will debate the case for new investment Jan. 30 and 31 and into February. The 2020-2023 budget is expected to be approved March 2.
Original at https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/accessibility-key-issue-in-debate-over-sidewalk-snow-plowing
Navigation App Breaks Down Barriers for the Visually Impaired
Posted on January 8, 2020 by admin in Built
The AccessiBuild indoor navigation system will be launched in January 2020 By: Colleen Romaniuk
Jeff Godfrey is doing his best to ensure a barrier-free Canada.
The general manager of Y4U Technologies in North Bay has created a platform to solve the issue of building accessibility for those who are blind or partially sighted.
He discovered that high unemployment rates and low incomes are persistent problems among this demographic. One of the reasons for this is inaccessible workplaces.
After Bill C-81 was passed in June 2018, Godfrey took a closer look at the accessible building models currently available to the public. He realized that he had the chance to create something, using a sustainable development model, that would address the problem that exists with building navigation.
'I saw an opportunity to innovate on the existing information and technology that we had to have a positive social impact,' said Godfrey.
Working with his employer, SRP Building Products, Godfrey and his business partner, Marc Rayner, started to develop AccessiBuild, an indoor navigation system geared towards the visually impaired, in 2019.
The team uses architectural software to create detailed digital maps of physical spaces. The maps are then uploaded onto the platform and made available for download.
Anyone who downloads the mobile app on their phone can access the blueprints.
Although the creators are targeting those with visual impairments right now, anyone can use it.
They hope to continue to adapt the software in the future for other demographics, including people who use wheelchairs or speak other languages.
Distance and bearings measurements can be customized to suit the user's needs.
For example, the app can tell the user how many steps to take to the next door, and whether they should orient themselves left or right.
Using SRP's LiDAR technology, which uses light detection and ranging, the company builds 3D models of spaces that are accurate up to three millimetres.
The end product is a streamlined app that makes navigating indoor spaces much easier.
The company's goal is to practice sustainable development. In other words, they want to create technology that will have a positive impact on the world socially, economically, and environmentally.
AccessiBuild is meant to be less cumbersome and expensive than existing technologies on the market.
3D models of physical spaces produce huge data sets which need to be converted and compressed to be useful to someone without access to architectural software.
Godfrey and Rayner have sought to simplify the process.
AccessiBuild is free to use, which is important for those without much disposable income. Buildings will pay an initial fee to have their layouts mapped.
The company has been working with various organizations and local users to test the platform.
Brian Bibeault, committee chair of the Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committee in North Bay, has been acting as the company's main tester, providing valuable feedback and guidance throughout the development process. CNIB Sudbury's program lead for accessible technology, Victoria Francis, has also been on board.
Godfrey has built nothing into the software that they haven't approved first.
'I can't imagine the difficulties that they have as a sighted person,' said Godfrey. 'We've had to make adjustments, but the feedback has been very positive and encouraging.'
The company has also opened up testing to tech trainers in the Canadian Council of the Blind.
The software will be launched on Jan. 10, 2020 at 176 Lakeshore, Co-Working Offices, which also happens to be the first AccessiBuild-enabled building on the platform.
The commercial space is 'very inclusive and community-oriented, so Godfrey figured it was a great place to develop this kind of software.
Original at https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/industry-news/technology/navigation-app-breaks-down-barriers-for-the-visually-impaired-1996799
Queens Borough Public Library Sued for Excluding Persons with Disabilities from Full and Equal Access to Hunters Point Library
Posted on December 23, 2019 by admin in Built
Disability Rights Advocates calls out shocking disregard for community, seeks to force library to fix this unjust and discriminatory situation
NEW YORK (November 26, 2019) – Today, Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) filed a class action lawsuit against Queens Borough Public Library, The Board of Trustees of the Queens Borough Public Library, and the City of New York, challenging the inaccessibility of Queens' newest library branch, Hunters Point Library. Read the complaint below.
Plaintiffs Tanya Jackson and Center for Independence of the Disabled – New York (CIDNY) are suing to require the library to fix this unjust and discriminatory situation.
Under longstanding disability rights laws, newly constructed buildings must be made fully accessible to people with disabilities. Yet Hunters Point Library, which is an entirely new $41.5 million building constructed after years of in-depth planning, shockingly excludes persons with mobility disabilities from full and equal access to its services through reliance on stairs and other inaccessible features.
The barriers at Hunters Point Library are numerous:
There are at least three levels completely inaccessible to persons with mobility disabilities.
The children's section contains multi-level wooden lounging and small-group meeting space inaccessible to children and caregivers with mobility disabilities.
The upper level of the rooftop terrace-which provides with spectacular views of Manhattan's East River-has no access for persons with mobility disabilities.
There are long waits for the heavily-utilized single elevator, which does not even stop at every level.
The stunning panoramic views are most visible from inaccessible staircases.
The designated stroller "parking" areas block the path of travel from the elevator to some of the Library's main features.
"It is shocking to me that a brand-new public library would not be fully accessible to people with mobility disabilities like myself. Libraries should welcome everyone, not exclude whole populations of people," said Tanya Jackson, a plaintiff who resides in Long Island City.
"Twenty-nine years after the ADA promised open doors and equal opportunities for people with disabilities, we find the doors of a brand new library shut to children and adults with disabilities. This should not be allowed to happen. The Queens Borough Public Library and the City of New York must obey the law and make this right," said Susan M. Dooha, Executive Director of plaintiff Center for Independence of the Disabled – New York.
"The ADA is not a new requirement, and it is not hard to understand. It is baffling that this $41.5 million building is missing these fundamental elements. It's as though the library didn't care about these requirements, or worse didn't even consider the needs of these members of the community. People with disabilities should be able to browse, relax, and enjoy the library just like everyone else," said Andrea Kozak-Oxnard, a Staff Attorney at DRA.
"Hunters Point Library was meant to be a model, a state-of-the-art institution designed to serve the needs of the community. The Library's total disregard for adults and children with disabilities must be addressed," said Michelle Caiola, Managing Director of Litigation at DRA.
DRA's goal is that the lawsuit will rectify the exclusion of people with disabilities by requiring Defendants to develop and implement a remedial plan to provide equal access to Hunters Point Library. The suit alleges violations of the federal and local civil rights laws designed to eliminate disability-based discrimination.
DRA provides free legal services and takes on complex class-action cases for people with disabilities whose civil rights have been violated. It is the leading nonprofit disability rights legal center in the country and has won nearly all its cases, knocking down barriers for people with all types of disabilities. Rather than delivering monetary rewards, these class-action suits are brought to force reforms to systems and practices that discriminate against people with disabilities.
About Disability Rights Advocates: With offices in New York and California, Disability Rights Advocates is the leading nonprofit disability rights legal center in the nation. Its mission is to advance equal rights and opportunity for people with all types of disabilities nationwide. DRA represents people with all types of disabilities in complex, system-changing, class action cases. DRA is proud to have upheld the promise of the ADA since our inception. Thanks to DRA's precedent-setting work, people with disabilities across the country have dramatically improved access to education, health care, employment, transportation, disaster preparedness planning, voting, and housing. For more information, visit http://www.dralegal.org.
Jennifer Barden
Original at https://dralegal.org/press/hunters-point-library/
Physically Disabled Employee Sues Apple Inc. for Constructive Dismissal
Posted on December 18, 2019 by admin in Built, iasr
Monkhouse Law
TORONTO, Dec. 17, 2019 /CNW/ – As Apple opens a new 'flagship' store in Canada a 33-year-old person with a disability who was employed for more than eight years as an "Apple Genius" working at an Apple Inc. store in Ontario is claiming that he was dismissed by the computer giant because he requires a wheelchair and is suing for lost wages and damages.
Robert Shaw alleges in a Statement of Claim that Apple repeatedly refused to work on an individual accommodation plan with him, opting instead to provide piecemeal solutions to his disability. He claims he was never provided with a legitimate reason for a denial of his request for an individual accommodation plan and his health suffered as a result of, harassment, bullying and a toxic work environment. Allegations made in the Claim must still be proven in court.
The action was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by Toronto employment lawyer Andrew Monkhouse, managing partner of Monkhouse Law, who says Apple may well have failed to comply with Ontario's Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and that the constructive dismissal of Robert constitutes discriminatory conduct under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Monkhouse says, "These actions paint a very different picture than being ranked as one of Canada's top employers by Forbes and are shocking for one of the world's most valuable companies."
Robert has been confined to a wheelchair his entire life and began his career at Apple in March 2011 at the company's Square One store in Mississauga. He worked there for six years before moving to Apple's Sherway Gardens store for two years until his constructive dismissal in July 2019.
According to the Claim, Robert requested that accommodations be made so he could work safely and comfortably from his wheelchair at Sherway Gardens. Robert was told that the store would be outfitted with an appropriate table and automatic doors in time for his arrival in 2017, but this never happened. Four months after starting at the store, Robert began experiencing soreness and numbness in his arms and hands due to working long hours on tables that were too high. The Claim states that Robert was never provided with an adequate table.
According to the Claim, only three of seven doors at the store were eventually made automatic and, instead of installing a button to open the door, Apple provided Robert with a remote control that repeatedly failed. Apple formally declined to automate the four remaining doors due to the expense.
The Claim also states that Robert was told by a senior manager at Apple that he wouldn't be promoted if he continued to be unhappy in his role. The manager further suggested the company might not be the right place for him.
Employment lawyer Andrew Monkhouse says his client was a long-tenured, hard-working and dedicated employee at Apple and the company had a duty under Ontario law to accommodate his disability to the point of undue hardship.
Under provisions in the AODA, Apple was obligated to put in place an individual accommodation plan for Robert as well as to protect the privacy of his personal information.
Remarking on the irony of Apple's alleged failure to accommodate Robert Shaw, Andrew Monkhouse stated: "On its company website, Apple proudly displays its work on accessibility technology. Apple has also used their work on accessibility in its marketing materials. The company has received awards and a great deal of positive press for its efforts in accessibility technology. Yet, these accusations seem to indicate that the company does not appear to be practicing what it preaches in its own retail stores."
Toronto-based Monkhouse Law is an employment law firm that specializes in employment law litigation, human rights law, and disability insurance law.
SOURCE Monkhouse Law
Original at https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/physically-disabled-employee-sues-apple-inc-for-constructive-dismissal-805619615.html
Accessible Homes for Ontarians of All Ages and Abilities
Nearly 2 million Ontarians live with some form of disability that affects their mobility, vision, or hearing – and the country is aging at a faster rate than ever before. That's why experts are saying we need to embrace universal design By Kevin Spurgaitis- Published on Dec 16, 2019
ST. CATHARINES – Diane Foster doesn't have it easy coming and going from her modest brick-and-siding bungalow in St. Catharines. The four stairs leading up to the front entrance can't accommodate her wheelchair; over the years, the lift to the back door has rusted out, seized up, or broken down altogether. And the home's interior presents its own challenges.
"My house was built in 1919, and, over the years, I've required many modifications to my home," says Foster, 67, who lives alone and has fibromyalgia, osteoporosis, three forms of arthritis, and spinal stenosis – a condition that results in the narrowing of the spinal canal – and has been using a wheelchair for 12 years.
"Originally, I had a clawfoot bathtub in here, which, of course, I couldn't get in and out of I also removed my bedroom door and lowered the light switches." But Foster's house, which is filled with the usual household furnishings and keepsakes – family photos, plush toys – "simply isn't big enough to accommodate" her power wheelchair, which is easier to manoeuvre than her standard one.
It would be better, she says, if her 750-square-foot house were open-plan – or if it at least had wider passageways and doorways, low thresholds, and rooms large enough for either of her wheelchairs. What's more, smooth floors, easy-to-operate windows, storage and work surfaces that are easy to see and reach, and stainless-steel handrails (which, she says would mean that she wouldn't need to "wall and furniture surf" whenever she needs to get up from her wheelchair) would improve her quality of life significantly.
"What about those of us who have owned their own home for a number of years and don't want to move just because we have a disability?" she asks. "I'd like to be able to afford to improve this house to make it more accessible."
The kinds of features Foster is talking about form part of an approach known as universal design. The demand for universally designed homes has grown in recent years in Ontario and the rest of Canada, and, partly thanks to the aging baby-boomer demographic, it's expected only to increase. Although recent federal and provincial legislation has included more provisions for people with disabilities, and updated building codes have provided basic safety standards, disability advocates say that they don't take into account all the needs that arise from the differences in human characteristics and abilities – and they're calling for the wider application of universal-design principles.
Architect and educator Ron Mace, who coined the term in the 1980s, has said that the approach involves "designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life" –
allowing more residents to engage easily and intuitively with their environments, even as their abilities and needs change over time. This means doorways at least 36 inches wide and hallways at least 42 inches wide, non-slip flooring, easy-access storage, raised front-loading appliances, low- or no-threshold stall showers, and at least one step-free entrance. Other accessible design features include lever-style door handles and faucets, and easy-to-use rocker light switches.
"[Universal design] is friendly, useable, and caters to just about everybody from the time that they're an adolescent up to the time that they're a senior, especially someone living with Alzheimer's," says Sandy Faugh, the team lead for AccessAbility Advantage, a proprietary service that consults on accessibility strategy as part of March of Dimes Canada. "That's not only good for people with disabilities, especially seniors," she says. "It's good for the parent that's pushing their child in a stroller and the person who has just undergone a hip replacement or busted their collarbone – both of whom find out pretty darn fast how non-accessible their home is."
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the country's housing agency, has had an eye on accessibility for a number of years. As part of the CMHC's national housing strategy, organizations can access certain funds if they can show that their projects involve a certain level of accessibility that's going to help people with disabilities. "Universal design is getting more attention now, as there's more of a need for it and a lot more examples of it," says Arlene Etchen, a regional consultant at the CMHC who focuses on accessibility and outreach. "And we know that's only expected to increase."
Nearly 2 million Ontarians – or about 15 per cent of the population – live with some form of disability that affects their mobility, vision, or hearing, according to Statistics Canada. Across the country, the number of people with a physical disability is expected to increase from roughly 3 million – or 10 per cent of the population – to nearly 4 million by 2030. And, with one in six Canadians now over the age of 65, the country is aging at a faster rate than ever before, StatsCan says.
On Foster's bathroom wall hangs a small red and white canvas that reads "Life is a beautiful ride." She says that she was a healthy, active grandmother who cycled about 5,000 kilometres every summer, walked everywhere all winter, and played several musical instruments. Then, one "devastating morning" in 2009, she couldn't get out of bed.
Foster says that she didn't know which was worse when it came to her psoriatic arthritis: the pain from staying in one position or the pain of trying to move at all. She could no longer turn a door handle, hold a pen, lift a book, comb her hair, or brush her teeth. In a way, it felt as if her own body had "betrayed" her, she says.
"I tried to retain my independence but soon realized that I was unable to do the simple tasks required for daily living," Foster says. "My life changed drastically. I went from being self-sufficient to being totally dependent on others."
Medication now makes the pain tolerable, Foster says – and she receives help from three personal support workers who visit her twice daily in rotation.
"If my kitchen was more accessible, at least, I'd be able to prepare my own meals and not wait for somebody to prepare them for me," says Foster, who is co-chair of St. Catharines Accessibility Advisory Committee.
Through the CMHC and March of Dimes Canada's Assistive Devices Program, she's been able to make modifications to her century home that have cost tens of thousands of dollars. But, as her monthly Old Age Security pension payment is about $1,400, she can't afford to remove the other barriers – and doing so could cost tens of thousands of dollars more. Even if she wanted an affordable, accessible apartment, most would not be large enough for her service dog, a black Labrador retriever named Olla, and mobility equipment. And the wait times for such units are between 10 and 15 years.
"I'd never burden my [two children] with having to look after me, and I'm not old enough to go into a seniors' residence," she says. "I'm comfortable in my own home. I'd just like to be able to access it."
Rebekah Churchyard, acting president of the Toronto Council on Aging, which, as part of the Councils on Aging Network of Ontario, works to address issues facing older adults, says that "it's an excellent symbol both for our global and national health that we've now got unprecedented longevity." But, she adds, "we're living in a world where, increasingly and painfully, it's obvious that people [with age-related disabilities] need to remain in particular spaces – or visit others – and they simply can't anymore."
Churchyard points to the concept of "aging in place," which is about the maintenance of an older adult's independence and choice to live in their home. "Maybe it's their matrimonial home, maybe it's their own home, or maybe it's their home shared with friends," she says. "But every single older person who I have ever spoken with has a very strong desire to stay in their home –
and "age in place' there – as long as possible. We have to start planning for it now." And, she notes, "What we're not always considerate of is the cost of their built environment within the home … There isn't a whole lot of base funding for the increasingly aging population."
But she says that she's "enthused and encouraged" by how public systems have supported people with physical differences and intellectual differences in recent years: "In that respect, governments have done a better job than ever before to promote accessible environments."
Ontario made Canadian history when it passed the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act in 2005. The AODA mandates that the province develop accessibility standards in areas such as built environments and ensure that the public and private sectors meet them by 2025. Still, despite the province's 2015 accessibility action plan –
called "Path to 2025" – the implementation of the AODA has fallen behind in recent years, according to such consumer-advocacy groups as the AODA Alliance.
In 2015, changes to the Ontario Building Code also came into effect, essentially upping accessibility requirements for multi-unit residential buildings. Fifteen per cent of all new units – and the majority of renovations –
must incorporate basic accessibility features, such as barrier-free entrances. Living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms must be large enough to allow a wheelchair to turn around within them, and feature reinforced walls to accommodate grab bars and other assistive devices. Visual fire alarms are now mandatory, too.
But the province's building code doesn't apply to existing houses or to new single-family or semi-detached homes or townhomes. And the rules don't produce benefits for everyone: kitchen counters remain unreachable for some, while acoustics present challenges for others.
According to Faugh, it costs only 2 per cent more to build an accessible home. "It doesn't cost you anything to make a four-foot hallway instead of a three-foot hallway," she says. "You're just placing the walls in a different spot, right?"
Some municipalities, such as Caledon, have gone ahead and adopted universal-design policies. Developers looking to build there must offer a model or drawings based on universal design, according to the CMHC. And, in 2015, Deep River created the Citizen Housing Advisory Committee to help come up with new policies and procedures that would accurately represent older people's "needs, wants, and values."
These are "small steps" in the right direction, Etchen says. And, according to the U.K.-based social-housing provider Habinteg, such steps can pay dividends: its research shows that universal design reduces social isolation, prevents extended hospitalization and long-term unemployment, and facilitates the economic participation of people with disabilities.
Building accessible homes while retrofitting others is about getting the "right players at the table" so that they can actually "drive a doable solution for the residential market," Faugh says. "We've got to show the architects, the engineers, the designers, and the interior designers what universal and accessible design looks like, teach them to do things a little bit differently and make that the new standard right off the bat."
In the meantime, both March of Dimes Canada and the CMHC recommend that seniors and people with disabilities – and their friends, families, and neighbours – consider various low- to no-cost modifications, including painting thresholds in a contrasting colour to create a visual signal for anyone with impaired vision, removing the storm or screen doors to make entry easier for those with arthritis or limited upper-body strength, using swing-away hinges to allow an extra few inches of clearance for a wheelchair or walker, and merely removing any obstacles, such as area rugs, from hallways and main rooms.
A smile flashes across Foster's face as she approaches her wheelchair lift after a short outing. She admits that it doesn't take very long to lower and raise it during the warmer seasons. But it can "feel like an eternity" in the ever-deepening cold.
"Maintaining my independence is part of maintaining my dignity and just being respected as a functioning, contributing member of society," Foster says.
For her, the question remains whether more governments, businesses, and organizations will get behind people with disabilities – who are already taking active roles in their own communities – and commit to accessibility plans that'll make universally designed homes more widespread in the years to come. After all, Foster says, universal design "does help everybody."
Original at https://www.tvo.org/article/wanted-accessible-homes-for-ontarians-of-all-ages-and-abilities
Wheelchair Seating was Not acceptable
Windsor – On a recent outing for the Windsor film festival we decided to view a film at the Windsor School of Creative Arts Performance Hall inside the former Armouries. The wheelchair seating in this hall is a joke.
There is only a six-foot area for wheelchairs and this was to accommodate three wheelchairs, I was informed. We had one and for us it was difficult.
There is also only one seated chair made available, so I was able to sit next to my husband. But if anyone else was to attend and require the wheelchair space, oh well, can't sit with your friend or spouse.
If they actually tried to allow three wheelchairs to fit into this designated space it would also lead to blocking the staircase, which is against the fire code.
You would think with $32.6 million spent on the building's renovations the wheelchair seating arrangements would have been better thought out in the performance hall. Andrew and Stacia Bryan, Windsor
Original at https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/reader-letter-wheelchair-seating-in-universitys-performance-hall-not-acceptable
First Fully Accessible Universal Washroom Opens at Upper Canada
Posted on December 4, 2019 by admin in Built
Accessibility advocates say the new facility at Newmarket's mall should serve as a benchmark for universal washrooms of the future By: Kim Champion
Newmarket resident and chairperson of the Town of Newmarket's accessibility advisory committee, Steve Foglia (left), and Derek Bunn, a special education teacher who also works with Community Living, were the driving force behind the new fully accessible universal washroom at Upper Canada Mall that's now open.
A Change.org petition that garnered more than 26,000 signatures to get physically disabled children, adults and seniors off the washroom floor at Upper Canada Mall was instrumental in the official opening today of the first fully accessible universal washroom on the premises.
It's been a two-year long project that saw many in the community working together to make it happen.
York Region District School Board special education teacher Derek Bunn, who started the petition in 2018, said support poured in from across the community and Canada, the United States and around the world.
He describes the situation for supporting people on a trip to the loo as follows:
"Children, adults and seniors who visit the Upper Canada Mall or any mall, and need to use the washroom, must be physically lifted from their wheelchair and be laid on the floor near toilets and the garbage in order to be changed. This type of activity is happening every day. Does this seem fair? Does this bother you? Does it shock you? I'm one of many who does this when I support someone at the mall. It is really unfair, unhygienic, unsafe and not dignified," Bunn stated in the petition.
He sent the petition to Upper Canada Mall manager Oxford Properties Group, which helped "push the mall in the right direction," to design its first fully accessible universal washroom, Bunn said.
Everyone involved in bringing the project to fruition was on hand this morning for the official ribbon-cutting of the 238-square-foot private washroom near the mall food court that could serve as the benchmark for universal washrooms of the future, said Steve Foglia, a Newmarket resident and artist who is chairperson of the Town of Newmarket's accessibility advisory committee.
Foglia said Bunn mentioned to the committee a few years ago that he was having an issue with being forced to change school children on the floor while they were on outings.
"I thought, that's got to stop," Foglia said. "We are so grateful and, honestly, they gave us everything we asked for without even questioning it, everything."
As it turned out, Upper Canada Mall was undertaking a renovation of its washroom facilities in 2019, and the stage was set for the universal washroom.
The area's councillor, Christina Bisanz, contacted mall management on behalf of the accessibility advisory committee, and Petroff Partnership Architects were brought in to carry out the vision.
"If you build an accessible washroom by the Ontario Building Code, it's not accessible," Foglia said. "If you build it by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act standards, it's better but it's still not 100 per cent accessible. This universal washroom is doing everything you could possibly need it to."
To put the features of the new universal washroom into perspective, Foglia said there's always an issue for people in wheelchairs to get through the door without banging into the sides. Personally, he can't wash his hands a lot of the time because he can't fit his chair underneath the sink.
"So we made an extra wide door that's 40 inches wide so people can go through the door just like an able-bodied person would," he said. "We also have a sink that you can access with a wheelchair, along with the soap dispenser and water, and hand dryer."
"We pulled things away from the wall so you can get under it with a chair," he said. "And a person can use the sling to transfer themselves out of the chair, onto the adjustable change table, over to the toilet, over to the sink and back to the change table, and back to the chair without anybody having to lift somebody out of the chair, that's very important. And keeping people off the floor, as it should be."
Here are the features of the fully accessible universal washroom at Upper Canada Mall:
An adult change table complete with a lift and sling (600 lb. capacity) that allows an individual to move around the room
Waiting area for support workers
Emergency bars to call for help
Accessible toilet, sink, soap dispenser, water, and hand dryer
Contrasting floor tiles to help those with a visual impairment navigate the facilities
Child-sized toilet and child change table
Grab bars fastened to walls
Security system that includes guests buzzing in to gain access
"This is how it should be done," Foglia said.
Upper Canada Mall's general manager, Ryan DaSilva, thanked the Newmarket community for their help and support on the project, and said the universal washroom ensures "everyone feels welcome at the mall".
Bunn added that Upper Canada Mall has always been the hub of social and shopping experiences, and it is a great atmosphere for people in wheelchairs to spend the day there.
"What a great economic benefit this is to the mall, and a great social outing to everybody in the GTA," he said.
Oxford Properties Group declined to provide the cost of the new washroom, but said the project was a custom-build and the first of its kind for the group.
Original at https://www.newmarkettoday.ca/local-news/first-fully-accessible-universal-washroom-opens-at-upper-canada-1897800
Toyota Canada Announces Partnership With StopGap, $100,000 Investment
Posted on November 23, 2019 by admin in Built
TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2019 /CNW/ – Last night, StopGap Foundation announced a new national partnership with Toyota Canada at StopGap's big annual fundraising event. A $100,000 donation from the company will support the development and growth of StopGap's School Project. The partnership will ultimately contribute to the longevity and livelihood of the Foundation and all its important awareness-raising programs in communities all across Canada.
"StopGap is a visionary organization that, by implementing a simple yet highly effective solution, has opened up hundreds of businesses across the country to people living with a disability or limited mobility," said Stephen Beatty, Vice President, Corporate, Toyota Canada Inc. "Toyota Canada applauds StopGap's important leadership in this space, and we look forward to joining them in their mission to make the world more inclusive through physical accessibility."
The partnership with Toyota Canada is rooted in shared values. Toyota's vision of becoming a global mobility company is underpinned by their commitment to creating a more inclusive society where everyone has access to mobility.
The support from Toyota Canada will elevate the Foundation's impact and reach even more communities across Canada. Enabling growth of the School Project will also support the growth of Community Ramp Projects to create more barrier-free spaces, all while sparking an important dialogue to inspire a shift in the way Canadians think about disability and address accessibility challenges.
"We will all experience a shift in the way we move, whether it's becoming a parent, sustaining an injury, a job requirement, or simply aging," says Luke Anderson, StopGap Foundation Executive Director and Co-Founder. "At some point in our lives, we will need to rely on a barrier-free amenity, so it's important that our world is designed and built to accommodate these shifts to maximize independence and spontaneity."
StopGap Foundation is a registered Canadian charity that is raising awareness about the importance of accessibility and inclusion. The Foundation's School Project, Community Ramp Project and Corporate Teambuilding program help ensure that our society's collective understanding, about how barriers to access hold so many people back from reaching their full potential, continues to advance and grow.
StopGap provides brightly coloured ramps to business owners across Canada to help them overcome what Anderson calls the "one-step problem" a single step outside a business that makes the entire building inaccessible to many people who use mobility aids.
The deployable custom wooden ramps – painted in bright colours to attract attention and create awareness – allow easier access for those who use mobility aids and anyone else who finds a stepped entryway challenging, including the elderly, parents with strollers, and couriers. The simple-yet-impactful ramps help highlight the value of having a storefront that everyone can access and get communities thinking about great solutions to accessibility issues affecting so many Canadians.
About StopGap Foundation
StopGap Foundation began its awareness-raising journey in 2011 and has since populated the country with over 2,000 ramps in over 60 Canadian communities. Last summer, the grassroots organization celebrated the launch of its first U.S.-based project with more than a dozen businesses with single-stepped entryways in NYC hopping on the awareness-raising bandwagon. The Foundation has a goal of extending its programs to communities worldwide.
About Toyota Canada
Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Toyota has sold over eight million vehicles in Canada through a national network of 287 Toyota and Lexus dealerships. Toyota is dedicated to bringing safety, quality, dependability and reliability to the vehicles Canadians drive and the service they receive. TCI's head office is located in Toronto, with regional offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax, and parts distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver. Toyota operates two manufacturing facilities in Canada. Having produced more than eight million vehicles, popular Canadian models built at these facilities include Toyota RAV4, Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h hybrid. Recent investments at its facilities in Ontario will allow for increased production of the top-selling Toyota RAV4 and RAV4 Hybrid models.
Original at https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/19/11/n14868396/toyota-canada-announces-partnership-with-stopgap-100-000-investment