What's New and Updated at The Shining Lamp?

Learning about the Medical and Social Models of Disability shifts our focus from “fixing” people to removing barriers that prevent their participation. The article explains how inaccessible buildings, forms, and services, alongside negative attitudes and stereotypes, create barriers that society shares responsibility for addressing. Adopting the Social Model supports the independence, dignity, and equatable participation of People with Disabilities and builds vibrant, inclusive, accessible communities.

To ensure your communication is accessible and inclusive in emails, meetings, events, videos, newsletters, websites, apps, and other materials produced, published and used, it's vital to follow International Accessibility Standards developed using a comprehensive inclusive process. Thankfully, Accessibility Training offers free and easy-to-learn standards for you to utilize.

Small text, poor contrast, tiny buttons, distracting layouts, and audio buried beneath background sound can turn ordinary online tasks into barriers to participation. Older adults and People with Disabilities face many of these same obstacles, making digital accessibility a shared concern. The article explains how changes in vision, hearing, dexterity, memory, and concentration interact with inaccessible design—and how established international accessibility standards address those barriers. Following these standards when creating websites, applications, and online materials supports access to information, services, and community life for people too often excluded by design.

Who gets to participate—and who gets left out—often comes down to everyday administrative decisions. A meeting held in an inaccessible space, information shared in unusable formats, or policies shaped without People with Disabilities can turn exclusion into routine practice. This article examines how systemic ableism becomes embedded in community administration through physical and communication barriers, cultural biases, and underrepresentation in leadership. It offers practical actions: plan accessible events, use International Accessibility Standards, provide accessible materials, challenge stereotypes, and involve People with Disabilities in shaping policies and decisions. Building a vibrant community means making full participation, influence, and belonging part of how it operates.

Bahá’u’lláh calls each of us to be an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. This page offers examples of people whose lives show what that looks like, from Ed Roberts and Judy Heumann, who built independent living and won Section 504, to Louise B. Miller, whose 1952 lawsuit opened a school to Black Deaf children. Reflect on the questions, then find people by name, group, disability, or topic, and choose one whose example you will put into practice by standing beside someone who is excluded or treated unjustly.

Welcome to The Shining Lamp This space is about building community. Imagine a community that fosters a genuine sense of belonging Where a diverse membership is warmly embraced. Where people of different Races, Disabilities, Ages, Genders, and Cultures, otherwise marginalized, participate fully and inclusively in all of their community's activities and events. Where children find the encouragement to explore and grow, and older members share their wisdom and experience. Where each person is valued for who they are and have opportunities to contribute. Where the community exemplifies the…

ALT text gives Blind People and People with Low Vision the meaning of an image that sighted readers take in at a glance. This guide applies WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1, which calls for a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose, to everyday publishing: why a name alone is not enough, which information belongs in the ALT text and which in the caption, how to describe people and their visible diversity with respect, and how to tailor a description to the place an image appears. Worked examples cover photographs, book covers, logos, and mastheads, and reflection questions invite Community Builders to examine their own practice.

Extending the guide to writing ALT text, this article explains how ALT text, captions, titles, and extended descriptions each carry different information, how to decide whether an image needs a description at all, and how to treat complex images, groups of images, and images of text, so Blind People and People with Low Vision receive what sighted readers see.

In this first-person piece, a parent shares why she visited her preschooler’s class to explain how he uses the bathroom, centering her son’s feelings about being understood and included by his peers. She describes preparing simple, age-appropriate explanations and showing some of the medical supplies he uses so classmates could ask questions and see that bodies can work in different ways without shame. The story emphasizes how openness at school can reduce stigma for People with Disabilities and create practical empathy among classmates, while also respecting a child’s privacy and dignity. By…

Can every member of your community read the email you are about to forward? A message that looks fine on your screen can reach a Blind reader as silence. Discover a quick way to see what a screen reader meets, seven questions that tell you whether a message passes, and a short note that asks the sender to fix what fails. Find out how to tell before you press Forward, so the message reaches the whole community.

Shawn Reynolds of the Puyallup Tribe asked the South Sound Powwow, held in Graham, Washington, to open its floor to dancers with disabilities, and the special his family sponsored on September 26, 2026, did exactly that. Dancers could skip regalia, wear headphones, and bring a parent or caregiver, and his twin sons, Nakotah and Dakotah, who have autism, joined kids, elders, and young adults in the circle. Shawn wants powwows across the United States and Canada to add specials and a full dance category for people with disabilities, a plan shaped by lived experience in his own family.

Emily Ladau's Demystifying Disability returns in a revised edition from Penguin Random House in October, with a new preface, fuller history and etiquette chapters, updated figures, and a discussion guide, because the stakes for People with Disabilities have grown sharper. Federal rules under the Rehabilitation Act's Section 504 have lost their community integration provisions in Texas, and Ladau reads that as the federal government backing away from the right of People with Disabilities to live in their communities instead of in institutions. In 2023, People with Disabilities in America earned a median under 70 percent of what People without Disabilities earned, a gap tied to hiring bias, inaccessible workplaces, and punishing benefit rules. She tells nervous employers that People with Disabilities already work with them, and she invites us to become better allies by acting, stumbling, and trying again.

A stranger demanded an older woman's wheelchair for a tired child, doubted her disability on sight, and accused her of faking until she showed her missing leg. Her story is a reminder that a wheelchair is a personal mobility aid, that appearance never settles what someone can do, and that in the programs, services, and communications we plan, a wheelchair stays with its owner.

A new Disability Lived Experience Group at Mid and East Antrim's council gives twelve residents a direct role in shaping services that People with Disabilities can use. Members will review how the borough develops its property and facilities, along with council policies and projects, and bring personal experience into decisions. The group was proposed because People with Disabilities have too often gone unheard, and its members include parents of children with disabilities and people who face barriers when they use council services.

Every Oct. 6, a Delta school marks World Cerebral Palsy Day because one family has spent eight years teaching about 4,000 students and parents what physical diversity means. Royce Sloane, 11, plays sledge hockey with SportAbility, stands a single belt short of black at Tsawwassen Martial Arts, and shows how far a child with a physical disability can go when programs plan for him. Inclusion takes more than a seat in a classroom. It takes resources, equipment, partnership, and understanding.

Inclusive Books for Children reviewed 2,189 titles for ages 1 to 9 published in the United Kingdom in 2025 and found Black, South Asian, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) main characters nearly missing, at 47, 30, and three titles. Disabled main characters in picture books fell to two titles, and neither came from an Own Voice creator, a creator who shares the character's identity. An author and the report both ask for everyday stories where identity is present but is not the whole plot, so children can meet heroes like themselves in children's books and creators can tell their own stories.

Online meetings can shut out Blind participants who use screen readers when hosts rely on shared screens and ask participants to read slides aloud in turn. This article shows hosts how to send accessible materials ahead of time, take turns speaking in ways every participant can use, and design one meeting that does not make anyone other, with questions for Community Builders to examine their own practice.