Dottie's mobility became progressively worse until she could no longer live at home and she moved into care. What has always amazed me is the way Dottie has just got on with it and accepted the restrictions that her disabling illness increasing puts on her.
Once I decided to stand for election I asked Dottie to sponsor me. I explained to her that in a sense I was using her but I no longer just wanted to talk about improving access for people with disabilities. I wanted to make a point that most buildings on the island are not accessible and as my sponsor I wanted her to join me for the count. Normally counting is completed in the Castle in the council chambers. As this is up several flights of stairs there was no way Dottie could access this. I made a request to Corporate Support who are the St Helena Government department in charge of organising elections for the counting to be done in a disabled access room. To their credit they took the request on board immediately and they chose Prince Andrew School hall as the venue for the count. The education department have a wheelchair accessible car and they agreed that this could be used to bring Dottie over to the hall.
To me this shows the willingness of people to assist people with disabilities but there remains the fundamental problem of improving access around the island. Not easy with our hilly terrain and historic buildings but much more can be done. It is only by enabling people with disabilities to participate in events that we will begin to show the community the importance of improved disabled access.
It isn't just buildings where wheelchair access is poor, and it isn't just wheelchairs. There is a lot of work needed in the Public Spaces to improve accessibility for those in Wheelchairs, with Pushchairs, for those who have difficulty walking and those who have difficulty seeing. In most cases this isn't a huge job, just small changes here and there in the way designers think when deciding how to make a space work.
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