New West Pride did something this year that has us here in the newsroom beaming with pride. (See what we did there?)
The local society set out to host a truly inclusive community event and, by doing so, helped bring the topic of accessibility to the forefront.
The group wanted to be more inclusive and accessible to the community, a community that includes people who have mobility issues, are deaf or hard of hearing, are blind or have limited vision, are gender non-conforming or lack financial resources. So it created an accessibility audit, which included a 52-item checklist covering everything from accessible bathrooms to wheelchair and priority seating at events. These things and more were incorporated into the 2016 New West Pride Street Party that took place on Columbia Street in the summer.
Following the success of the street party, New West Pride made the accessibility audit checklist available to the city, businesses and other groups so that they could implement some of the strategies Pride did to make their own events more inclusive.
If this doesn’t make you proud to be a Royal City resident, we don’t know what will.
Way to go New West Pride. We can’t wait to see what you do next year!
