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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.

A community cannot be united while barriers keep some of its members from participating. Drawing on Bahá’í teachings and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s example, this article connects the work of confronting racism, gender inequality, and other forms of exclusion with building lasting peace. It calls for practical action—including accessible gatherings, services, and information—so People with Disabilities and other marginalized members can contribute fully, shape community life, and experience belonging grounded in justice and respect.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 in 4 adults (28.7 percent) in the United States have some type of disability. They are our neighbors, coworkers, family members, and friends. Every gathering, class, and conversation in our communities is an opportunity to welcome them, to learn from them, and to build together. Community Building In neighborhoods and villages around the world, Bahá’ís and their friends take part in four core activities: children’s classes, spiritual empowerment programmes for young people, devotional gatherings, and circles of study…

At the heart of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh is the oneness of the human family: “It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” -Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, CXVII In another passage He wrote: “The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.” Oneness does not mean sameness. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained: “The diversity in the human family should be the cause…

Disability activist and author Emily Ladau first spoke about disability on Sesame Street at age 10, and her new edition of Demystifying Disability lands as disability rights are being rolled back. She treats disability as part of her identity, answered an airline's damage to her wheelchair by making it sparkle, and warns the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has never been fully funded while protections for disabled students slip further. Her guidance on allyship is direct: ask each disabled person what they want, because one disabled person cannot speak for every other.

The North Star Memo, built over a year by close to 50 disabled leaders and backed by over 20 groups working for disability justice and rights, puts People with Disabilities in charge of imagining the future instead of inviting them in once the decisions are made. It argues that who becomes disabled is shaped by choices made for profit and power, that the weight falls hardest on trans people and on Black and Indigenous women, and that interdependence and care deserve the same standing as roads and broadband. For us, the lesson is to bring disabled people into our planning while it is still taking shape.

At the 2026 gathering of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in Austin, Texas, the NFB Blind Survivors Group gave Blind People two practical tools for personal safety: the Safety Color Wheel and the Personal Safety Spectrum. Participants set blame aside and kept returning to one truth: respecting a person's choices and standing beside her fit together, just as offering an arm respects her and grabbing one does not. Naming trouble early, while it is still yellow or orange, and reaching out to trusted people is strength, not weakness.

The 2026 Presidential Report of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) set out a year in which Blind Americans were still refused the equality this country declared 250 years ago. A boy of eleven was ruled to have too much sight to keep his Braille, a physical therapist who is Blind lost a job offer the day after he disclosed his blindness, and federal agencies postponed long awaited web accessibility rules days before they were due. Blind People answered by winning back services, recording their own history, and claiming a place at the first stage of every plan, which is where removing barriers begins.

Responsive design is an approach to creating online content so it automatically adjusts to look good and stay easy to use on any screen, whether it's a phone, tablet, or desktop computer. Responsive design isn't just a trend: it's a necessity. Without it, you risk excluding a significant number of readers from accessing your content and information. In today's digital landscape, where users are accessing websites and content from a myriad of devices, responsive design is the key to ensuring inclusivity and accessibility. PDF Is Not Responsive Design PDF does not work as Responsive Design on…

Sian Heder's "Being Heumann," the opening film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), revisits 1977, when Judy Heumann and People with Disabilities held a California government building for weeks to demand accessibility regulations. Heder says the rights they won are being reversed, and her Apple TV film shows their protest as joyful community as well as struggle. It also shows daily barriers honestly, from rising out of bed to waiting for an attendant. Ruth Madeley, who uses a wheelchair and plays Heumann, once insisted she was fine on sets with no ramp, afraid of looking like a burden, and now tells other actors they can ask. We should have access ready before anyone has to ask.

A boy of about ten used the R word, an ableist slur, to ask about 16 month old Oliver Herring, a toddler with ReNU Syndrome. His father, Chris, chose to teach the boy instead of getting angry. He described a son who looks, sounds, and thinks in his own way, never quits, and brings joy wherever he goes, then asked the boy to use another word. Chris says questions like this cut deeper than people realize. He urges parents to talk openly and respectfully with children about difference, give them grace and room to ask, and stop keeping them sheltered. Oliver's diagnosis does not set limits on his potential, and his life holds real value.

Siân Heder's "Being Heumann" casts dozens of Performers with Disabilities in the story of a four week occupation of federal health offices in San Francisco. That protest pressed for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and became a major step toward the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). On set, Actors who are Deaf, Actors who are Blind, and Actors who use Wheelchairs brought access requirements that sometimes conflicted with each other and with a tight film schedule. Many cast members found a vintage wheelchair that seemed workable became a barrier ten hours in. The people who meet a barrier know it best.

Being Heumann, directed by Siân Heder, brings the 1977 Section 504 protest to the screen, with Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann and Actors with Disabilities playing her coalition. Four years after Section 504 was signed, the government still had not acted on it. So People who are Blind, People who are Deaf, People who use Wheelchairs, and their allies held a federal office in San Francisco for 28 days. They testified about the schooling and jobs they were denied and about people kept home and unseen. The film arrives as current federal efforts aim to weaken those protections, and it keeps the coalition itself, not its allies, at the center of the win.

A teenage wheelchair user emailed a store about product blocking its aisles. The store phoned back with an accusation of shoplifting. The reasoning was that one wheelchair had passed through that week. The description the employee finally gave, an older Black woman with long hair, matched nobody in the call. The branch she named was one the teen had never entered. Roughly 27 percent of American adults have a disability, and when a disability is taken for a description the person behind it disappears. The store offered ten dollars of credit. The teen refused it, and the aisles stayed exactly as they were.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá the perfect exemplar and extoller of all of the virtues of what it means to be what we are intended to be as humans, was the host of many gatherings and events. From the many stories of his travels and engagements, we know that his attention, care, and focus, was on Unity and Justice, and always on Inclusion of those who were considered to be historically marginalized populations, including those with disabilities.

Zarin Hamid spent years being asked to prove ability she had already shown. Employers asked what was wrong with her voice, then said she had no experience, and neither reason had anything to do with her skills. She excelled at a Pittsburgh bank until new leadership brought harassment, constant criticism, and the message that the team held no path forward for her. At her next job she asked for the access the Americans with Disabilities Act already guarantees her, waited four months, and was fired sixty days after it was granted, losing her health insurance while her testing was unfinished. A casino evaluator later failed her audition for not being loud enough, an instructor pushed for a second audition, and she passed, then returned to cybersecurity within days.

Every October, National Disability Employment Awareness Month puts a spotlight on what Workers with Disabilities bring to their jobs, running this year under the theme Celebrating Value and Talent alongside the nation's 250th birthday. The workers say it plainly: a job means new people, coworkers with a positive attitude, managers who answer questions, a team to belong to, pride in being named employee of the month, and wages for the things they love. The observance grew from a single week in 1945 to all of October in 1988 because people removed barriers and refused the doubts stacked against Workers with Disabilities. A job carries purpose, independence, and the chance to be valued as the person you already are.