New Zealanders attending a Japanese forum on disability issues last month caused a stir – by being disabled.
By HEATHER McCRACKEN – Auckland City Harbour News | Wednesday, 12 March 2008
The team of experts were taking part in a two-week exchange programme with groups from the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Minnie Baragwanath, disability advisor
Auckland City Council disability adviser , who is partially blind, led the New Zealand group.
“We were the only delegation to send anyone with a disability, and there were four of us,” Ms Baragwanath says.
“If you’re talking about disability issues, you need disabled people around the table.”
Ms Baragwanath, who helps ensure the council’s work meets the needs of disabled people, says Japan has a more institution-based approach to care than New Zealand.
But she was impressed with their building design.
“There’s been a lot of very good work done around the physical environment, very well designed streets and public buildings,” she says.
At home, her work involves making sure major building projects are designed with disabled people in mind.
She helped introduce measures for disabled people into the Queen St streetscape up-grade.
They include textured yellow inserts in the footpaths to alert visually impaired people to intersections, and benches with arm rests and back supports.
“With many things, if you get it right for someone with a disability, it works for everyone.”
In her own work, Ms Baragwanath uses software to read her typing back to her, another programme to enlarge fonts, and a magnifying screen to make documents bigger.
“But my most reliable tools are a black felt tip and white paper,” she says.
“I just write really big and use key words.”
Delegates for the Japanese government-funded trip were selected by Sister Cities New Zealand, which manages New Zealand’s participation in the exchange.
Executive officer Brian Cross says Ms Baragwanath was selected to lead the delegation because of her skills and experience.
“We were conscious of wanting to provide an example of being inclusive,” he says.
“So we were really pleased we got good applications from people with disabilities that were right up there in terms of skills and abilities.”
A team from Japan also visited New Zealand in November as part of the annual programme, which sees three countries from Europe and the Pacific invited to take part.
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