What's New and Updated at The Shining Lamp?

A boy of about ten used the R word, an ableist slur, to ask about 16 month old Oliver Herring, who has ReNU Syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disability. His father, Chris, answered calmly, told the boy who Oliver is, and asked him to use another word. The slur still cut deep, and Chris asks parents to talk openly with their children about difference and to let kids ask hard questions. When adults explain disability openly to children, curiosity can grow into welcome. We should answer the next curious child with a calm reply and a better word.

Kathryn Bromwich, who loves horror and has a disability, shows how films such as Frankenstein use scarring, prosthetics, wheelchairs, and amputation as signs of a corrupt character, and how celebrated art films drop disabled actors into scenes to deepen the unease. Horror has no use for it: Bring Her Back casts Sora Wong, who has limited vision, as a funny, smart character the audience stands with. Disabled people hold just 2% of the film and television workforce, so she calls for disabled creators telling their own stories. We would start with the stories in our next program, service, event, or communication.

A teenage wheelchair user emailed a store about product displays blocking the aisles and got a shoplifting accusation back, tied to a branch the teen had never visited, with a wheelchair seen that week as the only evidence. The apology was a ten dollar credit, and the employee lost her job. With about 27 percent of American adults having a disability, treating one wheelchair as a description of a person is ableist logic, not evidence. A person who reports a barrier is showing us what to remove, and the barrier is what should go. We should start with the next program, service, event, or communication in planning.

On her 29th birthday, Antonia Sinibaldi was served a dessert with “Happy Birthday Wheelchair!” written where her name belonged. Staff had used the word on a ticket to find her table, and the restaurant said no disrespect was meant, yet the ticket had already reduced a guest to a wheelchair. Sinibaldi writes publicly about accessibility and her own spinal cord injury, and she will not go back. We should lead with a person’s name on any notation we write, and keep a detail about a wheelchair beside the name, never in its place.

Journalist Saba Salman wrote Double Discrimination for her youngest sister Raana, who is British, South Asian, and has a Learning Disability, and whom people rarely picture as both disabled and a Person of Colour. Her reporting shows that people facing racism and ableism together are skipped by the social justice ideas meant to counter bias, and that inequalities in housing, work, health and schooling are shocking in scale. The book closes on the defiance and optimism found among public sector organisations, charities, activists and families. We should plan every program, service, event, and communication with someone like Raana in view.

Two University of Calgary scholars answer a premier's remark that people can earn their way into inclusion, and out of it again, with a plain rule: inclusion is the floor beneath a just society, never a reward. Treating it as conditional gives People with Disabilities a standing that is provisional, ties worth to productivity, and repeats practices where access is withdrawn until people prove their worthiness. The United Nations disability rights convention and Canada's national charter point the other way, and Students with Disabilities already meet bullying and exclusion at high rates. The authors ask why the systems that produce exclusion exist and which barriers we have been unwilling to remove. We should start with the next program, service, event, or communication in planning.

Steph Sandy, a mother with cerebral palsy and wheelchair user who makes dance for a living, meets strangers who ask how she can be a mum and why her husband is with her. A doctor answered her pregnancy question with doubt, a hospital referred her family for assessment without a word to them, and a carer barged ahead of her to grab her baby, which she turned into the dance Mother Like No Other. Her family also found stadium seating planned without a child beside a wheelchair user in mind. We should plan our next program, service, event, or communication so a disabled parent and her children sit together.

A national task force is pressing Baha’i communities to plan gatherings with Deaf Baha’is and Baha’is who are Hard of Hearing from the first conversation. Back in the 1990s the group saw that Deaf Baha’is usually stayed involved for roughly three months, and at an online devotional Zoom’s automatic captions mangled sacred words from Arabic and Persian, while interpreters who sign in American Sign Language (ASL) carried the readings well. We should ask Deaf People and People who are Hard of Hearing what they want before we plan our next program, service, or event.

Jodie T. Allen and Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center report that Americans now divide evenly, 48 percent to 48 percent, on whether the country has two economic classes, where only 26 percent saw a split in 1988. The share counting themselves with the “have nots” doubled to 34 percent, and Black adults are far likelier than white adults to see the divide, 67 percent to 45 percent. We should plan our next program, service, or event expecting that money is tight for many of the people who might join us.

A form whose error messages give no way to fix the mistake, whose keyboard focus cannot be seen, or whose sign in demands a puzzle shuts People with Disabilities out of sign ups, registrations, and feedback. This page lists the Level AA success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.2, that apply to forms, grouped under the four WCAG principles, each with a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) technique, followed by six steps Community Builders can take this week.

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.

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.

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.

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…