 My first daughter was born in 1969 and my second in 1971. Back then, there were few ramps leading into stores or from footpaths, to roads, everything was steps, and narrow doorways into shops. Business buildings like banks were near impossible to navigate for young mums out trying to do the shopping and banking with a toddler and a baby in pram. I can remember how we were expected to leave our baby parked outside the bank, unattended as there was no way we could get the pram up the flight of steep concrete steps let alone through the narrow door and we were not supposed to take the baby into business establishments. At that time there were no parenting or breast feeding areas in shopping centres and public breast feeding was not only frowned on, you could be arrested for public indecency y for doing it L. You were supposed to go and sit on a public toilet to breast feed, your babyL. I was more than once, ordered, off a park bench and told to go to the toilet to feed my baby. L, even though I was feeding modestly and while you could tell what I was doing you could see less of my breast than you would see if you saw a woman in a bather on the beach. That infuriated me that it was OK to wear a string bikini on the beach, even on open see through crochet one, but breast-feeding was deemed disgusting. L Society’s priorities all wrong. Anyhow, ‘cut the waffle, Kathy’, I got heavily involved in trying to make changes for my daughter’s future. I helped obtain signatures and along with two other tireless workers, we petitioned Jones Lange and Wooton, who were building the Westfield Shopping Centres and we succeeded to sway them to include mother’s rooms within shopping centres they built, beginning with the Brandon Park Shopping Centre. Try as I could I had little effect in getting a smooth run for prams in streets or into public buildings, but in 1981. Ten year after I, along with countless, other people, had begun to try to bring about changes to public buildings and pathways to allow access for prams and mobility products, for the disabled, the United Nations declared the International Year of the Disabled. This made a huge difference as all countries involved in the United Nations, were expected to make their country more liveable, more accessible, for all disabled people. This of course, was a godsend to mum’s with pushers and prams as we finally could enter buildings and push prams along streets. I can only guess what an enormous difference this must have been for those in wheelchairs. To search for different types of mobility aids and compare the function and price, take a look at mobility compare , it’s is a great place to start if you have a need to research such items. Huge gains in access and rights were made, for disabled people, beginning in 1981, so much so that the major outcome of the International Year of Disabled Persons was the formulation of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1982 and International Decade of Disabled Persons ran from 1983 to 1993. December 3 each year, since 1998, is identified by the United Nations as the, International Day of Disabled Persons. The laws that helped bring about changes to make our streets and stores accessible to disabled people help parents of small children in strollers and prams. This is just one more example of how when we consider the needs of a minority and make changes so they can participate at an equal level with the majority, we ultimately benefit everyone. As Reg and I travel the country on tour, we discover more walks every year designed for ease of wheelchair and pram navigation.  Comments Comments are closed. | Kathy Shell on Facebook Author and Artist
|
RSS Feed
