#AccessActivist Terry Wiens, a polio survivor who has maintained independence throughout his life, says Nanaimo’s urban planning needs a lot of work
When was the last time you tried to wheel yourself down to Tim Hortons for a coffee? Or perhaps roll over to the 7-11 for a carton of milk? Chances are you faced some kind of challenge along the way — if you were rolling your wheelchair down a Nanaimo street or sidewalk. Perhaps a pole stood in the middle of the sidewalk, or the sidewalk simply “ended”, or maybe it was crumbling and you just didn’t want to risk rolling over it.
Terry Wiens has captured some of his Nanaimo-based accessibility challenges on a YouTube channel. He also writes a blog, Poster Child Perspectives, where he posts about a variety of issues, including access activism.
Civil rights are the backbone of any accessibility issue. It is the very protection of civil rights that ensure ALL people have access to everything from buildings to service to an equal society. — Terry Wiens, Access Activists
Life-long challenge
Terry Wiens was a poster child for the “March of Dimes” campaign in 1955. In 1999, he was on the Canadian Labour Congress Anti-Racism committee.
“I have been an access activist most of my life,” Terry writes. “Access of one kind or another. First it was access to my community following a childhood in the Children’s Hospital. The cornerstone of my belief to access is based on getting into the community.”
Terry had polio in childhood, resulting in permanent disability. He was a poster child in 1955 for the March of Dimes fundraising campaign, an initiative that emerged in response to the polio epidemic among children. Later in life, he took on a number of advocacy roles.
Now Terry’s a senior and a grandfather. He recently recorded a range of deficiencies in Nanaimo’s infrastructure that present problems for anyone with mobility challenges — but particularly for people who rely on wheelchairs to get around.
We speak with Terry Wiens.
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audio | interview with Terry Wiens @Druids on accessibility in #Nanaimo #peoplefirstradio http://t.co/FhiZvInGRB pic.twitter.com/pdKBzdmAuS
— People First Radio (@peoplefirstrad) September 18, 2015
