Accessibility & My Experience
Sunday, 15 May 2011 19:29![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelSo. This ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fonsfaq thing is a thing, and marina has most magnanimously put up a post for questions about Israel. These are difficult questions! And very interesting ones!
Marina gave a long answer about disability laws, and some things regarding military service. I wanted to write something a little more personal, and possibly drop some anecdotes.
I am going to ramble like there's no tomorrow.
I have a chronic illness. Chronic illnesses can be a pain in the ass in terms of classification, definitely for others and often for oneself as well. When shit goes wrong, I don't always know for certain if the illness can take credit for it, directly or indirectly. Many of my symptoms are not so obvious. When one is very tired a lot of the time, even when sleeping a requisite eight or so hours a night, one does not always know if this is due to the disease. I have a broad category for things that I attribute with qualifications to chronic illness or medication-related side-effects.
I've been ill for about four and a half years. For some time I had a fairly visible limp. Nowadays I only limp rarely, which makes the flaring nature of my illness awkward and scary to explain. I take medication daily and spend more time than average in various doctor's appointments. I tire easily and get crabby and downright mean when I feel poorly. I have one serious physical difficulty that is not due to my chronic illness -- but may be due to another chronic illness that I'm having difficulty getting a definite diagnosis for.
I'm twenty six years old and working on my first degree (BSc). This is not terribly unusual in Israel. The program I'm in is for a three year degree (two semesters each year) but I am going to need at least one extra semester, probably two. My inability to cope with a standard work load has already started to adversely impact my schedule choices. Right now I am seeking special authorization to take a first year course in my third year. I may end up having to discuss my illness to achieve this.
When it comes to discussing my illness, I find it hard to balance between erring on the side of caution (revealing as little as possible), and my natural tendency to be too talkative, too honest, too rambling and too ranty.
In Israel, there are several laws on the books regarding the accessibility of public locations -- not just government-funded ones -- to people with mobility, sensory, cognitive or mental disabilities. There are advocacy organizations that advertise accessible venues. There is one big organization that provides its "seal of approval" to businesses that meet certain standards of social responsibility, unifying, for example, workers' rights concerns with disability rights concerns.
Topographically, Jerusalem is an extremely hilly city. It's also an old city and a poor one, so the architecture, the city planning, are both marked by these three phenomena. Older neighborhoods have steeper streets with narrower sidewalks, and many of the older modern neighborhoods are rich in one-way streets, tiny alleyways and stairs, especially in the steepest places. Older buildings are likewise not up to the most modern architectural standards of living.
Israeli society has a strange cultural relationship with adversity that I can't quite put my finger on, but it makes being ill, and not wanting to be uncomfortable, a strangely guilty experience. Wanting things like elevators and curb steps and sidewalks of a certain width and smoothness, when one does not even have the obvious proof of needing them.... I know I'm not the first or the last person with a chronic illness who has to grapple with an internalized sense of feeling selfish or lazy. Or with external criticism to that effect. That makes it a little easier to digest.
Relatively recently I moved apartments. My old apartment made me want to cry sometimes, because it was up two steep, outdoors flights of stairs, and I have respiratory difficulties. I now live on the ground floor, I can do my grocery shopping with a wheeled shopping cart, and I only have moderate difficulty navigating said cart, when it's full, from the supermarket to my apartment. A thing like shopping for groceries, that a healthy, able-bodied person may take for granted (shopping for one! not a lot of groceries!) has become immeasurably less aggravating, angering, exhausting... less of a thing to dread. I'm a little less of a "lady with baskets" at the market, to use an Israeli colloquialism.
My degree is interdisciplinary, and at my university, that means shuttling between two campuses. One campus houses, among others, the social sciences, where I study psychology. This campus received a dedicated donation some time back to make the whole building and grounds accessible. Like everything else in Jerusalem, it resides on top of a big fat mountain (and has the best view of the city!). Now, the building is built in a very strange, sprawling way, and navigating it can be hard even for an able-bodied person. I was limping quite badly when I started studying here, and finding all the secret locations of the elevators was sort of a tiny rite of passage.
Here is a thing that accessibility designers do not think of, which I shared with my mother at the time: if you use a wheelchair, as long as the hallway is wide enough, you can get to the elevator and the elevator serves its purpose. If your problem is that you hurt, or you're tired, or you limp without a cane* and take much longer to get anywhere, a long roundabout way to an elevator or a ramp may end up tiring you out only slightly less than a flight of stairs.
Even though this campus has had a lot of work put into making it accessible, there are still places where, either there are no accommodations, or the accommodations made are only sufficient in certain scenarios. Sometimes I wonder about pointing this out to the people who normally only see elevators and ramps when they're there, and not when they're not, but it doesn't pan out. As for other accessibility features: I don't really know enough about sensory accommodations on a day-to-day, practical basis. I can say that there's a center for blind and vision impaired learning, but I don't know how active and effective they are. I can say that there is braille in all the elevators. I have no idea what would happen if someone asked for an interpreter in a certain class.
The second campus I go to houses the exact and natural sciences, and it's where I study biology. It's a sprawling campus, and only a minority of the buildings have elevators. There are some ramps about the campus, but also a lot of stairs and places where the curb is ridiculously just too high, or just unsmooth enough. This is also on a big hill, because three thousand years ago this mountain-surrounded location was highly strategic, or something. Sometimes I feel like ranting about how, of course, there's no reason for the mathematics building to be accessible, because we all know disabled students would never get far in a discipline that requires so much field work.
Last school year, the students' organization held a few efforts regarding disability rights. They passed a petition to get the university to consider making the sciences campus accessible before the deadline set by the law (which, I believe, is circa 2014). They held an "accessibility day" event where they invited able-bodied students to try to wheel themselves around in chairs. Around the same time I read a blog post criticizing this very practice, but I'm too tired to find it, so I would be much obliged if anyone reading this has a link to drop off. Signs were put up in certain locations, for example, the student lounge, which is utterly inaccessible. As I recall, the signs were vandalized in a sectarian political manner which I think is difficult to explain to non-Israelis, and a bit beyond my scope. Suffice it to say, there appeared some hostility towards the campaign.
Eventually I heard nothing more about this campaign, although once I realized it had sort of fizzled and disappeared, I tried inquiring about it at the organization. I have yet to receive an answer. I would like to probe deeper about this, and be more active, but usually I'm too tired. I also become quite anxious at the idea of self-advocacy because of some of the reasons I mentioned above.
* Here I am going to trust that everyone reading this understands that, if I am not using a cane when I limp, it's because I have excellent reasons not to use a cane.
When it comes down to it, I don't think Israel is that different from other places to be ill or disabled in. Doctors will be exhausting, strangers also. Places like clinics and hospitals, and government offices, are more likely to be accessible than other types of places, like restaurants, places of work or entertainment venues. Yuppie neighborhoods like my current one are more likely to have accessible businesses than places like my old neighborhood, which was populated by students, religious families and work immigrants. Laws for the rights of people with disabilities both exist and are insufficient. People are people -- it's hard to predict ahead of time whether they'll be exhausting or forthcoming.
I have been writing this entry for more than an hour and I rambled much worse than I feared. Here, have a jazzy performance of an Israeli lullaby:
fonsfaq thing is a thing, and marina has most magnanimously put up a post for questions about Israel. These are difficult questions! And very interesting ones! Marina gave a long answer about disability laws, and some things regarding military service. I wanted to write something a little more personal, and possibly drop some anecdotes.
I am going to ramble like there's no tomorrow.
I have a chronic illness. Chronic illnesses can be a pain in the ass in terms of classification, definitely for others and often for oneself as well. When shit goes wrong, I don't always know for certain if the illness can take credit for it, directly or indirectly. Many of my symptoms are not so obvious. When one is very tired a lot of the time, even when sleeping a requisite eight or so hours a night, one does not always know if this is due to the disease. I have a broad category for things that I attribute with qualifications to chronic illness or medication-related side-effects.
I've been ill for about four and a half years. For some time I had a fairly visible limp. Nowadays I only limp rarely, which makes the flaring nature of my illness awkward and scary to explain. I take medication daily and spend more time than average in various doctor's appointments. I tire easily and get crabby and downright mean when I feel poorly. I have one serious physical difficulty that is not due to my chronic illness -- but may be due to another chronic illness that I'm having difficulty getting a definite diagnosis for.
I'm twenty six years old and working on my first degree (BSc). This is not terribly unusual in Israel. The program I'm in is for a three year degree (two semesters each year) but I am going to need at least one extra semester, probably two. My inability to cope with a standard work load has already started to adversely impact my schedule choices. Right now I am seeking special authorization to take a first year course in my third year. I may end up having to discuss my illness to achieve this.
When it comes to discussing my illness, I find it hard to balance between erring on the side of caution (revealing as little as possible), and my natural tendency to be too talkative, too honest, too rambling and too ranty.
In Israel, there are several laws on the books regarding the accessibility of public locations -- not just government-funded ones -- to people with mobility, sensory, cognitive or mental disabilities. There are advocacy organizations that advertise accessible venues. There is one big organization that provides its "seal of approval" to businesses that meet certain standards of social responsibility, unifying, for example, workers' rights concerns with disability rights concerns.
Topographically, Jerusalem is an extremely hilly city. It's also an old city and a poor one, so the architecture, the city planning, are both marked by these three phenomena. Older neighborhoods have steeper streets with narrower sidewalks, and many of the older modern neighborhoods are rich in one-way streets, tiny alleyways and stairs, especially in the steepest places. Older buildings are likewise not up to the most modern architectural standards of living.
Israeli society has a strange cultural relationship with adversity that I can't quite put my finger on, but it makes being ill, and not wanting to be uncomfortable, a strangely guilty experience. Wanting things like elevators and curb steps and sidewalks of a certain width and smoothness, when one does not even have the obvious proof of needing them.... I know I'm not the first or the last person with a chronic illness who has to grapple with an internalized sense of feeling selfish or lazy. Or with external criticism to that effect. That makes it a little easier to digest.
Relatively recently I moved apartments. My old apartment made me want to cry sometimes, because it was up two steep, outdoors flights of stairs, and I have respiratory difficulties. I now live on the ground floor, I can do my grocery shopping with a wheeled shopping cart, and I only have moderate difficulty navigating said cart, when it's full, from the supermarket to my apartment. A thing like shopping for groceries, that a healthy, able-bodied person may take for granted (shopping for one! not a lot of groceries!) has become immeasurably less aggravating, angering, exhausting... less of a thing to dread. I'm a little less of a "lady with baskets" at the market, to use an Israeli colloquialism.
My degree is interdisciplinary, and at my university, that means shuttling between two campuses. One campus houses, among others, the social sciences, where I study psychology. This campus received a dedicated donation some time back to make the whole building and grounds accessible. Like everything else in Jerusalem, it resides on top of a big fat mountain (and has the best view of the city!). Now, the building is built in a very strange, sprawling way, and navigating it can be hard even for an able-bodied person. I was limping quite badly when I started studying here, and finding all the secret locations of the elevators was sort of a tiny rite of passage.
Here is a thing that accessibility designers do not think of, which I shared with my mother at the time: if you use a wheelchair, as long as the hallway is wide enough, you can get to the elevator and the elevator serves its purpose. If your problem is that you hurt, or you're tired, or you limp without a cane* and take much longer to get anywhere, a long roundabout way to an elevator or a ramp may end up tiring you out only slightly less than a flight of stairs.
Even though this campus has had a lot of work put into making it accessible, there are still places where, either there are no accommodations, or the accommodations made are only sufficient in certain scenarios. Sometimes I wonder about pointing this out to the people who normally only see elevators and ramps when they're there, and not when they're not, but it doesn't pan out. As for other accessibility features: I don't really know enough about sensory accommodations on a day-to-day, practical basis. I can say that there's a center for blind and vision impaired learning, but I don't know how active and effective they are. I can say that there is braille in all the elevators. I have no idea what would happen if someone asked for an interpreter in a certain class.
The second campus I go to houses the exact and natural sciences, and it's where I study biology. It's a sprawling campus, and only a minority of the buildings have elevators. There are some ramps about the campus, but also a lot of stairs and places where the curb is ridiculously just too high, or just unsmooth enough. This is also on a big hill, because three thousand years ago this mountain-surrounded location was highly strategic, or something. Sometimes I feel like ranting about how, of course, there's no reason for the mathematics building to be accessible, because we all know disabled students would never get far in a discipline that requires so much field work.
Last school year, the students' organization held a few efforts regarding disability rights. They passed a petition to get the university to consider making the sciences campus accessible before the deadline set by the law (which, I believe, is circa 2014). They held an "accessibility day" event where they invited able-bodied students to try to wheel themselves around in chairs. Around the same time I read a blog post criticizing this very practice, but I'm too tired to find it, so I would be much obliged if anyone reading this has a link to drop off. Signs were put up in certain locations, for example, the student lounge, which is utterly inaccessible. As I recall, the signs were vandalized in a sectarian political manner which I think is difficult to explain to non-Israelis, and a bit beyond my scope. Suffice it to say, there appeared some hostility towards the campaign.
Eventually I heard nothing more about this campaign, although once I realized it had sort of fizzled and disappeared, I tried inquiring about it at the organization. I have yet to receive an answer. I would like to probe deeper about this, and be more active, but usually I'm too tired. I also become quite anxious at the idea of self-advocacy because of some of the reasons I mentioned above.
* Here I am going to trust that everyone reading this understands that, if I am not using a cane when I limp, it's because I have excellent reasons not to use a cane.
When it comes down to it, I don't think Israel is that different from other places to be ill or disabled in. Doctors will be exhausting, strangers also. Places like clinics and hospitals, and government offices, are more likely to be accessible than other types of places, like restaurants, places of work or entertainment venues. Yuppie neighborhoods like my current one are more likely to have accessible businesses than places like my old neighborhood, which was populated by students, religious families and work immigrants. Laws for the rights of people with disabilities both exist and are insufficient. People are people -- it's hard to predict ahead of time whether they'll be exhausting or forthcoming.
I have been writing this entry for more than an hour and I rambled much worse than I feared. Here, have a jazzy performance of an Israeli lullaby:
no subject
2011-05-16 00:54 (UTC)no subject
2011-05-16 13:39 (UTC)no subject
2011-05-17 05:14 (UTC)When it comes down to it, I don't think Israel is that different from other places to be ill or disabled in.
I wish this were true, but when I was in the US last summer, I remember noticed people with various physical disabilities all over the place, and the reason it stood out to me, I realized was because I was so unused to it. In Israel I see one, maybe two people in wheelchairs a week; in the US I noticed a few a day, and I doubt it's because the US has a larger percentage of people in wheelchairs than in Israel. I think it's because the US, at least big cities, are incredibly accessible in comparison with here, I think it requires a lot more effort for a wheelchair bound (for example) person to navigate streets (and parks, and restaurants, and and and) here than there. I think in general it's a combination of awareness, enforcement, and, quite frankly, the size of the country, and subsequently of streets, sidewalks, buildings, sidewalks, parking spots, pavements, gates, etc. But it's not just that - it's also things like how if you go to Disneyland, which I'd admittedly not representative of the US but still, every map lists attractions by accesibility as well - to mobility impaired, hearing impaired, visually impaired, they make sure to make adjustments as necessary to make as many attractions accessible to as many people as possible. And that really did bring home to me the difference between there and here, about how much we have left to go, not that the US is by any means perfect.
no subject
2011-05-17 13:08 (UTC)If your problem is that you hurt, or you're tired, or you limp without a cane* and take much longer to get anywhere, a long roundabout way to an elevator or a ramp may end up tiring you out only slightly less than a flight of stairs.
Oh, I know that story.