Free Internet Training in Cambridge

If you live in Cambridge you can make use of Cambridge Online City's e-Learning Centre. It helps anybody with any kind of disability to use the computer and access the Internet. They can offer one to one support, individual learning plans at the Hester Adrian Centre in Chesterton and also at other venues throughout the City.

Cambridge OnLine is a charity working across the East of England helping disabled people use computers by providing training and advice to individuals and groups. We provide accessibility assessments & advice, one to one training, and we have a full range of adaptive equipment for people to try.

• Find out more

Interested in Volunteering?

Cambridge OnLine urgently need additional volunteers to help support our learners. You don't have to be a computer expert. You just need to give us 2 hours a week - morning or afternoon - to help guide a learner as they explore computers and the Internet in our relaxed and fun e-Learning Centre. Training, expenses and satisfaction are available. Phone or email Sue now to fix a time to come for an informal visit. 01223 300407 or help@cambridgeonline.org.uk

Blue Badge

I've just had the privilege of paying £2 to renew my Blue Badge, but there are more worrying concerns for Cambridge Blue Bade holders. Disability now did a recent survey, with Gerri Bird
http://tinyurl.com/39uy5m

I've also had concerns raised over the news that the County Council is considering changes to access and parking in Cambridge.

http://tinyurl.com/245mx5

Read the report
http://tinyurl.com/3c39q

Cambridge Folk Festival

Having failed to get there myself, do any disabled people have comments on the facilities at the Folk Festival last weekend?

Pointing in the Right Direction

How often do you hear people say "If only I'd known that earlier, things would have been so much better!"

Well, it is impossible for ordinary people to read all the leaflets and keep up to date with all the useful websites, but there is a group in Cambridge who make it their job to do so, with the aim of helping disabled people and their carers.

Directions Plus are based near the Cambridge Science Park, and the team of professional advisors and volunteer helpers have helped a lot of people over the years.

Gerri Bird of Directions Plus was nominated for TW2B in 2006 by a grateful couple whom she has helped to get benefits to which they were entitled.

Only 125,000

Having heard a little about disabled people buying expensive, but adapted vehicles and selling them on at a profit I found this interesting BBC page about 1978. It claim there were only 125,000 disabled people in Britain, now the government estimate is nearer 10 million. This means the definition of who the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) applies to has increased over time.

http://tinyurl.com/yqjb2b

Other Awards

Its always good to see people you vaguely know or even know win awards. This linked article about Cambridge man Martin Sabry, shows another award for technology to help disabled people. It is this type of technology that we hope gets recommended for The Way To Be Awards.



I don't know Martin, but I know his mother.


http://tinyurl.com/2fy2gm

Disability and accessibility websites links

Here's some websites and blogs which cover disability and accessibility issues. As always, the usual disclaimers apply! — (we're not responsible for the content of other websites)

• TechDis
  leading educational advisory service, working across the UK, in the fields of accessibility and inclusion.
• Royal National Institute for the Blind: web access centre blog.
• BBC | Access 2.0
  This is a BBC blog all about their work on accessibility.
  
• Ouch! is the website for the BBC Radio Show. It has a long blogroll of blogs by disabled people.
  
• Accessify Forum
  This is one of the few online forums devoted to accessibility. Very geeky!
• Disapedia
  To provide all the community, information and resources any disabled individual could want or need.
  
• WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) is committed to improving the Web for disabled people.
  One service the site offers is a screen reader simulation which will give you an idea of how a blind person might use the Web. Other services include a distractibility simulation, which shows how a person with a cognitive disability might see the Web, and a low vision simulation.
  
• The Gimp Parade
  Feminist disability politics and cultural analysis.
• But You Don't Look Sick?
  Magazine about living life to the fullest with any disability, invisible disease, or chronic pain.
• Disability Studies, Temple U.
  Cool stuff in the world of Geography, Disability Studies, and Educational Leadership. Based at Temple University in Philadelphia, with contributors from coast to coast. Check out our 'Notable Blogs' list - your portal to the disability blog world.
  
• The 4th Avenue Blues
  I am a 34 year old man living with and experiencing paranoid schizophrenia. Here I write about my daily travels through life and living with a mental illness.
• Disability Rants
  Step in and read some of my trials and tribulations of life as a wheelchair user.