Once you see it...

For those of us that have no physical disabilities, it can be easy to ignore how inaccessible our world is. It isn’t until we face injury or disability ourselves, or see it in a loved one, that we start to realize how inaccessible completing some of the most basic tasks can actually be. 

Stairs are a forever obstacle. 

Disability ramps, while a wonderful inclusive alternative, are frequently so steep as to require a wheelchair user to ask for help getting up or down. 

Cafeterias and restaurants are built for food to be at eye level. When you’re standing. Store counters are often above the heads of individuals sitting in wheelchairs.

Locks on bathroom doors require a lot of hand dexterity, and bathroom stalls are often too small to comfortably manage a wheelchair. 

The infrastructure we have built isn’t for everyone, and careless mistakes that may seem like inconveniences can be fully disruptive to persons facing mobility challenges. 

Airlines, for example, provide free mobility assistance and even allow individuals to travel with mobility devices for free. But when these devices break during travel, which happens altogether too frequently, it renders individuals with mobility challenges incapable of getting around by themselves. 

These problems are invisible if you aren’t disabled. You’re able to see the world meeting your needs. 

But anything can happen at any time to make any one disabled, and if this happens to you, then you see it.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 

We may not be able to solve all these problems in a day. There are problems ReviMo won’t be able to touch at all. But one thing we can do is make the world that much more independent for people with disabilities, one transfer at a time.