History of accessWORKS
Vancouver’s bid for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games culminated July 2, 2003 at the 115th IOC session in Prague, Czech Republic with a dramatic second round win. This success inspired members of Neil Squire Society’s board to consider how persons with disabilities could be fully involved in the delivery of the games. They imagined an event where technology would be used to enable full participation—not create new barriers. They hoped, as well, to find a way to help realize the commitment to social inclusion contained in the Vancouver bid.
In the spring of 2005 Neil Squire Society brought together a broad cross-section of stakeholders to formally plant the seeds of this vision. With the support of major national and BC-based disability organizations, it was proposed that the Research and Development staff of the Society work with VANOC sponsors and key suppliers to explore opportunities to showcase accessible technology.
The second part of that dream took a big step forward in November 2006 when a representative group of disability organizations—both service providers and advocacy groups—was invited to an informational meeting at the office of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
At this meeting we heard about VANOC’s commitment to environmental and social sustainability and how they hoped to ensure that economic activity flowing from the Games benefited people who are often marginalized in our society. This meant First Nations persons, the inner city, the multicultural community and persons with disabilities having opportunities in the areas of employment, procurement and volunteering.
Inspired by the possibilities and the suggestion that creating a “one-stop shop” would assist not only VANOC but other employers to open up options for their members and clients a number of follow-up discussions took place between participants. A major challenge was that setting up a whole new organization and infrastructure could take a lot of time and money and both were in short supply.
The solution came when Gary Birch, Executive Director of Neil Squire Society and a respected leader in the disability community, volunteered to host and manage the project. Neil Squire Society is a national non-profit organization that provides employment programs, assistive technology and research and development to help persons with disabilities and is headquartered in Burnaby, B.C. As the Society was already involved in the effort to help make technology used for the 2010 Games accessible, it was a logical choice to play this supportive role with regard to employment, procurement and volunteering.
Very quickly a consensus was achieved among important groups in the disability sector and a working group was formed to move the project forward. After a number of discussions and refinements an agreement was reached with 2010 Legacies Now to provide the funding as part of its mandate to support economic opportunities for persons with disabilities.
The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance played a crucial supportive role throughout and in September 2007 at the annual convention of the Union of BC Municipalities, Minister Claude Richmond officially announced the creation of accessWORKS.
The Consortium behind accessWORKS continues to grow, and it is the support and hard work of all of the organizations involved that led to the realization of this dream—and will ensure its success.
National and BC-based disability organizations who participated in the formation of accessWORKS:
- Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation
- Council of Canadians with Disabilities
- Canadian National Institute for the Blind
- Canadian Hard of Hearing Association
- BC Coalition of People with Disabilities
- Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
- Tetra Society of North America
- Sam Sullivan Disability Foundation
- Connectra Society
- Canadian Association of Community Living
- International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Canada
