Organizer: Kelsey Chapman
Format: Onsite-Online, Afternoon
Abstract:
In a large depersonalised world, with faceless cities, social services and health systems, experiences that detract from dignity for people with disabilities often go unchallenged and undetected. Physical, attitudinal, economic, and environmental barriers continue to exclude people with disabilities from accessing new technologies, education, meaningful employment, and advances that could otherwise enhance the quality of their lives. For a global commonwealth focused on sustainability, particularly in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the lived experience of disability and the ability to live a life of dignity sits at odds with many of the sustainable development frameworks, goals, and interventions. The push towards a society that meets all peoples’ needs while building connections with their physical environment, risks disenfranchising and excluding the 1 billion global citizens with disability. This begs the question, who is sustainable development for and how can disabled people live with dignity in a sustainable world? Through the course of this 90-minute panel, audience and panel members will engage, debate and propose solutions to the barriers that may prevent dignified sustainable living for people with disability. Using crowd-sourced questions, audience members will be able to influence the discourse with panelists from a range of sectors and backgrounds, who are passionate advocates for small changes that make big differences.
Themes: Knowledge-to-Action, Sustainability for Who?