The Business of Dignity

About our guest

Episode Transcript

David: Welcome to Practical Accessibility Insights. I’m David Best and with me is my co-host Sandi Gauder. Hi Sandi, how are things in your corner of the world?

Sandi: Hi David, things are great. The weather is amazing. It’s such a treat for this time of year.

David: In this podcast, we’re going to discuss the business of dignity. In 2007, the United Nations came up with the United Nations Charter of Rights for Persons with Disabilities. And in 2010, Canada became a signatory to that charter. And one of the principles is dignity.

So Sandi, why don’t you go ahead and introduce our guest for today.

Sandi: I would love to. I am so pleased to have Julie Sawchuk as our very first guest on this podcast. Hi, Julie. Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Julie: Hi. Hi, hi. Thank you. I’m very excited and I’m honored to be your first guest.

Sandi: So maybe, Julie, if you can take just a couple of minutes to let everybody know who you are, what you’re about, what you do, and just a brief intro for us.

Julie: For sure. My name is Julie Sawchuk. I live in southwestern Ontario. I am an accessibility professional and I’ve been thinking about this, Sandi, ever since you invited me because how to like in a nutshell say what I do. Well, I specialize in accessible bathrooms. Well, I also specialize in recreation centers and teaching people how to do an audit of a recreation center and I also specialize in outdoor spaces and how to make your outdoor spaces more accessible. I’m like, gosh, Julie, you don’t really specialize in anything. You do everything. And that’s, that’s one of my problems is I’m everywhere.

First and foremost, I am a teacher. Prior to sustaining my spinal cord injury, which left me paralyzed from the chest down – I’m a manual wheelchair user – I was a teacher and so, you know, it wasn’t a quick pivot, but it was a pivot after my accident to go from teaching high school science to teaching everybody and everything about accessibility everywhere I go. And literally, the world is my classroom now. Everywhere I go, there is another story to tell. Someone to teach something about accessibility, and I don’t shy away from doing that.

Toilet Tuesdays are my favourite days of the week because I always share with my connections on LinkedIn and on Instagram how to make bathrooms more accessible. And I’m super excited that we’re talking about dignity today because that is the space where dignity is compromised over and over again when people with disabilities encounter a washroom that doesn’t work for them.

Sandi: So you mentioned dignity. In this episode we’re trying to focus on that. So how would you define dignity?

Julie: When I talk about accessibility, I explain it as a three-legged milking stool. And in order to sit on a three-legged milking stool with confidence to do whatever it is you need to do on that stool, whether you’re milking a cow or not, is those three legs have to be the same length. And so I identify those three legs as safety, independence and dignity.

And when you have all three legs of that milking stool of the same length, because you have created an accessible space, then what it does is it saves people energy because they don’t have to have a plan B of what if I fall off the stool or, you know, holding on to something else that they can balance while doing the task on the stool. So if you can picture that in your mind, dignity is one of those legs of that three-legged milking stool.

But dignity for me is a feeling. There’s very few words that can be used to explain loss of dignity or the feeling of dignity because it’s a feeling. It’s really an emotion for me. And I know that I can identify specific situations where because of a lack of understanding of disability or a lack of accessibility provided in a service or a space, my dignity has been compromised or squashed or something like that. It’s a feeling. You feel less than.

Sandi: Hmm. Hmm. I understand that totally. Of the three stool legs, which is the one that you encounter missing most often? Is it safety, independence, or dignity? Which is the one that you seem to encounter more often than not?

Julie: I think it’s a really good question because it makes me think that in every situation that is not safe and is not independent, there is an automatic reduction in opportunity for dignity. An automatic squashing of that feeling of worthiness as a human.

Sandi: So without those first two, without safety and independence, it’s almost impossible to have dignity?

Julie: Yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it.

David: To put it another way, I get the sense in the disability community that there seems to be a belief that there’s an illusion of inclusion. That organizations seem to patronize the disability community by coming up with this DEI practices, and yet we don’t seem to see action there. And I’m wondering, how should people react, like persons with disabilities? You get your dignity violated and you get really upset about it. And sometimes I lash out and I feel bad about it. How should we handle those situations?

Julie: David, I think you might be leading me into describing an interaction that happened recently where I totally lost my cool. And that’s a polite word for saying what happened. How should we react? And this is like …

This is something that I look at other disability advocates, disability professionals, and I wonder how do they always seem so collected? And then I see situations where they’re not. And so I know it’s pretty impossible to keep your cool and keep your, you know, prevent your head from exploding on whatever situation. I don’t know how to answer that question because it’s such an energy suck.

Like every time you have to have a conversation with somebody about why their space or service isn’t accessible, it actually takes energy away from your ability to do life, right? Whatever that thing is that you want to do, like, you know, go to the park with your kids or go out for dinner with friends or go to the gym. Every time you have to have another interaction, another conversation, or, you know, find another way to be safe or independent or preserve your dignity, it all erodes at the battery that runs our body, right, our energy. So having to have another conversation with another person about why this situation doesn’t work, it’s exhausting. So I don’t know how to answer your question, but can I tell you the story?

Sandi: Yes, please.

Julie: So we have in town where I live two accessible parking spots that are in a parking lot, designated, signed, well painted. The other ones are designated as accessible, but they’re on the street. And so as a wheelchair user, I’m pulling my chair out of the car and into traffic if I’m parked in those accessible spots on the street.

So I always choose to park at the grocery store where these two accessible parking spots are. And so that’s what I did. And I went to do my volunteer gig and I came back out to the car after the show was over. And somebody had wedged their Mini Cooper in the transfer aisle between my car and the car in the adjacent accessible parking spot. And so it totally blocked my access to my vehicle.

It totally blocked the curb cut into the parking lot and I totally lost it. And then it so happened that the person who had done that parking job came right up behind me and wanted to assist me. There’s this poor woman in a wheelchair. What can I do to help her?

So anyways, we had an altercation in which I was incredibly rude. But I’m pretty sure she will never park in an access aisle ever, ever, ever, ever again. I reflect on that thinking, why do I go like zero to a thousand in a millisecond in a situation like that.

And it’s, it’s because like her excuse was, I was in a hurry. You know, she was going to be late for the show basically, because she didn’t give herself enough time to actually find a real parking spot. And so her being in a hurry, and that was her excuse for parking there, meant that I was less than. I was not important. She didn’t think of anybody else but herself.

And in that situation, it’s clearly painted as a no parking area, you know, with the yellow hash lines in that transfer space. But then I think, well, what else could we do here as built environment specialists in accessibility? I think about this, right? Like, what else could we do to usurp this, prevent this from happening again in the future?

And so what I want to see is No Parking painted on that transfer aisle, either like a big P with a line through it or the actual words, No Parking, just as another reminder to people that this is not a parking spot.

And so anyways, the long and the short of it is I lost my shit on this lady and I, I had to get a friend to move my car and my blood boiled for about three weeks after that. And, and so eventually I get to the point where, okay, what could prevent this from happening to me and to others because I know it happens to people all the time and it has actually changed how I park everywhere I go.

I’m always trying to park in a way that it is impossible for somebody to block my driver’s side. So I’m either parking in two parking spots backing in so that the curb is to the driver’s side and no one could actually fit in that space, but it’s just enough for my wheelchair and my lift.

David: So how did she respond? Was she indignant or apologetic?

Julie: She wasn’t indignant, but she also wasn’t particularly apologetic. It was like she was making excuses. I was in a hurry well, there were no other parking spaces and, and I fit kind of thing.

David: That tends to be the situation I find that people make excuses and we never seem to be able to actually get to a point where we’re constructive in solving these issues.

Julie: Yeah, and I think that this situation is different from a quote unquote infraction of a built environment space where like the bathroom isn’t very well accessible. You know, that’s a decision that was made by a whole bunch of people, you know, when the building was built, right? And there’s no one person that is responsible for what was done in terms of, you know, placing the grab bar too far from the toilet or whatever makes that bathroom not accessible. Whereas this was a person making a choice that impeded my ability to live. And so I think that’s what makes me angry so much is the lack of awareness, the lack of understanding that I’m more important than you are kind of thing.

Sandi: Where do you find you have more success in getting people to understand about dignity and why physical spaces are set up the way they are with, you know, no parking areas or accessible washrooms or whatever the case may be. What is the most effective way to get people to clue in and say, I get it now. I really shouldn’t be doing those kinds of things.

Julie: Yeah, totally not the way I did it with this parking situation. Exact opposite. Like, you got to keep your cool. You have to be positive. You have to say it in a way of, I wonder if you would consider making a change in this particular situation, right? Like, or let me show you how this garbage can prevents me from being able to turn around in the bathroom.

When I do training, I work with a group of people, we start in the start. So whether that’s getting off at transit or getting out of your car in the parking lot or arriving by sidewalk. And then, so it’s just putting a fresh set of eyes on a space or a fresh experience of that space because the people who are there day in and day out are feeling it and seeing it the same way that they always do.

So when I come and bring a different perspective to the experience of being in that space, it tells a story that they haven’t heard before. And it makes them sit up and understand that, okay, yeah, we can easily make some changes to make this better. And I’ve had so many people say, every time we do a site review or we review a set of plans, I think about you and how we should be looking at this differently.

So for whatever it is that I have this positive attitude most of the time that helps people see things from a different perspective. And yes, my lived experience is that of a wheelchair user, a manual wheelchair user at that. But I weave in the stories of the lived experience that I have collected over these last nine years from friends, from colleagues, from other people that I encounter in the community or at events or wherever, and bring in those nuggets of knowledge. So the more stories you can layer in, the more understanding happens when you’re having those discussions about how you can make a space better.

Sandi: Do you think people get it after the first story? Do you think that all you need to do is just explain what happens to a human and their dignity and then they get it? Or is it more that you have to say it over and over and over and over again before it sinks in?

Julie: I think it depends on where that person is at in their own life and whether they have connections or relations or friends that are people with disabilities and have experienced that with them. Those are the people that I seem to get through to the fastest is the people who have lived experience within their inner circle, whether they’re colleagues or friends or relations.

And because then they go, yeah, well, when I was with this person and we were trying to navigate through this parking lot, whatever happened, right?

And so then they start layering in and it’s like a puzzle where you’ve got another piece put into that puzzle. And some people have their puzzles more fully formed when you encounter them and other people, they have no pieces whatsoever. They have no idea what the picture looks like or what they’re trying to build. Those are the people that require more stories and a greater understanding but the key to all of this work that we do as accessibility professionals is helping people understand the why. Right?

We’ve got all the what’s, we’ve got the what they need to do in the building code or in the AODA or in the WCAG 2.0 or whatever we’re at right now. We’ve got the what’s what they need to do, but it’s helping people that are doing the what’s to understand why they are doing it that makes the difference.

And a classic example is me getting out of my wheelchair onto a toilet and showing them actually how I use a grab bar. Because people that install grab bars are generally not the people who are using grab bars. So they don’t necessarily understand location, angle, position, you know, not blocking it with the toilet paper roll, how high it is from the height of the toilet seat. All of that stuff adds up to make a difference. And when I show them why I use a grab bar for getting on and off the toilet and pulling up and down my pants, then they go, oh I get it.

David: Do you think that there’s a gap maybe between the decision makers and the people that actually install these things? Because I see the same issue with the audible pedestrian signals. They get installed and they’re very happy that the city has these, but in most cases they’re useless because you can’t hear them or you can’t understand them.

Julie: Yeah, or you can’t find them, right? There’s definitely a gap. And one of the problems, like in that example, and in a lot of building code examples as well, is there’s a range and that range, like for installation I’m talking about, right? So there’s a range for installing a grab bar off the floor from 760 to 860. Well, that depends on how tall the toilet is, then the range between the top of the toilet seat and the range of the grab bar, it could be quite large and therefore useless.

And the same thing with an APS, right? The rules say you can install it within X number of meters from the front edge of the curb. But in my perspective, I think having it farther away from the curb is safer. I don’t want to be closer to the curb to have to reach the button. So yeah, absolutely. It’s that understanding of the why, the decision makers knowing why it should be done this way and changing some rules. Gosh, but it just takes so long to change rules, right?

Sandi: You come from an education background and you were a teacher for many, many years. And David and I, we have weekly conversations, almost weekly conversations, and a lot of times we come to the conclusion that the problem gets solved if accessibility and disability awareness is built into the education system. And the earlier, the better.

In your experience as an educator, what’s your perspective? Is that even doable? Is it? Is it being done? I mean, I’m so far removed from school. I don’t know if that is even part of the curriculum at all. Does it depend on the teacher? And do you think it would make a difference if we started teaching people at an earlier age, integrating it, accessibility and disability awareness at an earlier age? Would that have any impact whatsoever?

Julie: Sandi, could you ask a bigger question, please?

Sandi: I can try.

Julie: Oh my goodness. I had been teaching for 15 years. I got hit by a car and everything changed. And I thought there was no way in hell I could go back to teaching. And I had no idea that I would have the energy, that my school would be accessible enough, that I could fit in the physiotherapy that I needed to do in my recovery, the time it takes to just have a body that doesn’t work the way it used to. All of that stuff made me go, no, I can’t go back to teaching.

Reflecting on that now and for the past however many years, I had no role model. I had no one in my building or in any other buildings around in my school board that were teachers as wheelchair users.

And so I didn’t even think it was possible. So that’s one way to answer your question is providing accessible spaces that allow people with disabilities to be teachers would be a really awesome place to start. One of the things that I saw and I know still happens in schools is accessibility is done piecemeal for students who need it.

And so a student with a disability who was short in stature at my school had a low toilet installed in one of the bathrooms for them. And then when that student left the school, they took that toilet out. So it was like a one piece of accessibility that was put in specifically for that student instead of looking at holistically, how could we design all of the bathrooms to be accessible for everybody?

And for me, if I had gone back, I would have had to use the elevator to get to an accessible bathroom from my classroom. And to have five minutes between classes, that’s just, that doesn’t work, right? So if we could think about accessibility from a holistic perspective in the education system, instead of it being piecemeal, school by school, student by student, we would have more representation from the educator’s perspective, from teachers and educational assistants and staff. And we would also have a wider range of student body and bodies in the building.

I have done some work in high schools just as a guest speaker in the past few years and one of the schools that I attended had no students with disabilities because there was no way to get to the second floor of the building.

And so those students went to a different school. And I don’t think that’s cool.

Sandi: And that kind of, in my mind, ties into the whole idea of dignity. If you can’t go to a school with all the kids that you’ve grown up with, that you’ve known your entire life because the school doesn’t have the configuration to allow for it, I would imagine that leads to sense of indignity. It’s like, I’m not good enough to be able to go to the school with my friends. I have to go somewhere else and maybe there’s an upside to meeting all sorts of new people, but still, why am I set out as other? Why am I othered by doing that?

Julie: It’s totally othering. Absolutely. Yep. And I don’t think that our DEI strategies in education are addressing that.

Sandi: Why do you think that is? Why is there a disconnect between strategies, policies, all this goodwill, you know, the whole DEI conversation, it sometimes feels like platitudes. So how do you get from words to action and what’s the missing link?

Julie: The missing link is that fear of cost.

Sandi: It’s that simple.

Julie: It is that simple. The number one question is how much is it going to cost?

They don’t even investigate really well how much it’s gonna cost because it’s just automatically assumed that it’s gonna cost too much money. And so getting around that, actually digging into what could be done and ignoring how much it might cost. Just having conversations and like DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, where’s accessibility in that? And you’ll have lots of people say, well, of course accessibility is a part of that because that’s what DEI is. Well, if you aren’t actually physically accessible, you can’t have diversity. It’s impossible.

If you physically can’t get to the boardroom table because there’s no elevator or the door is too small or there’s no accessible bathroom in the building. If you can’t get to the boardroom table, you can’t be represented. You cannot have your voice heard.

And the same goes for digital accessibility. If the meeting is not being held in a way that is accessible for somebody with vision loss or hearing loss who uses ASL as their first language, like how can you be a part of the conversation if you can’t get to the table?

David: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Julie. I appreciate you coming on and sharing those scenarios with us. I don’t feel so bad at my indignant responses now knowing I’m not the only one that gets so upset with some of these behaviors we have to encounter.

Julie: You’re so not alone, David, so not alone.

David: Yeah, Sandi, do you have a last question for Julie?

Sandi: I do. We’ve called this podcast Practical Accessibility Insights. And part of that is the intent that we leave our listeners with something pretty simple that they can do, doesn’t cost money ideally, but something that they can do that will give them a better understanding of the world that we live in when it comes to accessibility and disability awareness. So from your perspective, is there one simple thing you can leave our listeners with that might help them understand a bit more about dignity and how it impacts people?

Julie: Go tighten your toilet seat.

Sandi: Okay, please explain.

Julie: Okay, so one of the things that I come across most frequently that literally is free to do is to tighten the toilet seat on the toilet in your accessible bathroom or in all of your bathrooms. If you have a church, a rec center, a workplace bathroom, like any commercial bathroom where people are coming and going and using that toilet all the time, go and make sure that your toilet seat does not wiggle back and forth.

If it does wiggle back and forth, you go under with your hands and you tighten those those bolts that hold the toilet seat on. Because as somebody who basically slides from a wheelchair down onto the toilet, it’s always lower, I could actually just keep sliding because that toilet seat is moving with me as I go.

I don’t get up and then sit down. I slide on it and lots of people transfer onto the toilet in that way and it causes the seat to start to loosen from the attachment points on the toilet itself. So it’s a massive hazard. It’s like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I hate to drop that in there, but it’s totally true. If somebody were to continue and fell or got themselves wedged between the toilet and the stall wall or the bathroom wall, there would be consequences associated with that.

I’ve pinched skin on my legs between the toilet seat and the bowl because the seat was loose. And then like, I don’t feel it, right? Because I don’t have sensation. I can’t feel I’m shifting. I can’t feel I’m being pinched. So, so there you go, Sandi, there’s one fast and easy free thing to do. Go and make sure your toilet seat is tight.

And if I can invite people to come to my website and download their toilet checklist, it would be a great way to start looking at the whole accessibility of your accessible washroom. Is it actually accessible? What are some quick things that you can do? That’s a place to start. So start with your toilet seat and then download your toilet checklist and check the rest of your toilet while you’re there.

Julie: So you can find me at juliesawchuck.ca. Make sure you spell my last name right, although Google is getting smart at directing people even though they spelled my last name wrong. So it’s J U L I E S A W C H U K.ca.

Sandi: I subscribe to Julie’s newsletter and it’s always a treat to read. You’re a great writer and the most recent one with the rant was exceptionally well written. So I did appreciate that. I would recommend that if you enjoyed this conversation, you seek Julie out at her website, on LinkedIn. We’ll put all the links in the podcast info later on.

David: In conclusion, I see dignity as the economic fertilizer for small business because, you know, when you’re, when you’re growing up, you’re a kid, teenager, adult, you got to have proper foods to grow healthy, right? And same with intellectual knowledge. You need to feed yourself quality information. You can’t feed yourself on myths and conspiracies. I always tell organizations the first principle they need to establish in their value proposition of their business is what is their dignity strategy. Customers, consumers are their best marketing tool and if they want to grow economically in size and wealth, I think that dignity is one of the best strategies they can incorporate, one of the best principles they can incorporate in their value proposition.

Julie: I think that’s a fabulous idea. Maybe the D in DEI should actually be dignity.

David: Thank you Julie for coming on and sharing your experiences and Sandi once again thank you for your insights and participation and I hope people will join us again on our next episode.

Julie: Thank you, David and Sandi for having me. It’s been lovely to chat and I look forward to what comes next in your podcast.

Sandi: Thanks so much, Julie.

David: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this podcast are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the podcast team and partners. This podcast is for information and learning purposes only. The Practical Accessibility Insights podcast is hosted by CMS Web Solutions. The intent of this podcast is to raise awareness for practical advice and strategies for making digital and physical environments more accessible to everyone.

Thank you for joining us in this time of discovery and sharing for a more inclusive society. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at info, I N F O at david dot best or Sandi, S A N D I at CMS web solutions dot com. For more information and resources, go to www.CMSWebSolutions.com or www.BestAccessibility.consulting.