International Womens Day – My #ChooseToChallenge 

The 8th March is also known as International Women’s Day. This year’s topic is #ChooseToChallenge, and it has made me really think about what I am going to talk about. I challenge myself every day, as there are many things that I struggle with on a daily basis.  When I wake up, I always think what the challenge might be for that day. Sometimes, my challenge may be related to a task that I find hard, or other times it could be how I challenge others to understand me and general disabilities.

Ability Consultancy was set up to challenge others in understanding disability. The last year has been hard to challenge others in their learning, due to spending most of it in a COVID-19 lockdown and our courses were delivered face to face! In 2021, things changed.  We branched out, using “new technologies” to deliver virtually, by using Zoom and Teams, for example.

We have been fortunate to have received funding from Lancashire Community Foundation. This allows us to deliver disability awareness training to young people. We partnered up with Lancashire Fire Service who deliver TEAM on behalf of the Princes Trust to deliver the training. The current cohort of sessions have to be delivered virtually. Our main challenge was how to provide the outcomes of a face-to-face session virtually. In the face-to-face session, there is a large practical element of the course. This allows young people to experience many types of disabilities and impairments first-hand. We still needed to deliver this but the question was how?

So, thinking outside the box, we came up with alternatives.  For visual impairments, we were able to use pictures demonstrating different types of impairment. It is not as good as using simulation goggles, but it continues to provide insights into visual impairment.  Next, we cover hearing impairment. We are able to use an app which allows people to hear the different levels of hearing impairment.  The main element of the practice that young people really enjoy, is using the wheelchairs. We get them to carry out everyday tasks, sports challenges and encourage them to challenge each other. This is not possible on a virtual course so once again we are using videos.  The video gets young people to think about how it would feel to use a wheelchair every day, and some of the challenges people face going to work.

The final practical element and challenge is to carry out everyday tasks with one hand. This challenge can be carried out virtually. We set the young people a challenge to tie their shoelaces one handed and/or tie their hair up one hand. It is great to see all the young engaging and taking part.  They challenged each other and themselves at the same time. These challenges always produce fun, laughter, and encouragement to think outside the box. One of our young people suggested tying her hair up in a novel way using a vacuum cleaner. As much as we like to challenge, we decided against this tactic! It was amazing to see and hear how they challenge themselves to come up with different novel ideas.

So, going back to #ChooseToChallenge and International Women’s Day.  I think we have accomplished challenging people to challenge themselves, and take challenges that they never thought they would have to do encounter!

Happy International Women’s Day 2021!