[il-talk] Fwd: Article from Daily Herald News Section 2016 01 24

Tue Jan 26 14:30:51 UTC 2016

Very nice comprehensive article. Glenn, this is a grate public relations
peace for us.

-----Original Message-----
From: il-talk [mailto:il-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Leslie Hamric
via il-talk
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2016 6:45 AM
To: NFB of Illinois Mailing List
Cc: Leslie Hamric
Subject: Re: [il-talk] Fwd: Article from Daily Herald News Section 2016 01
24

Hi Denise. Thank you for forwarding this. I'm sending the online version two
because in the beginning there are some photo captions that Newsline
apparently left out. 
Leslie
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160124/news/160129398/

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 26, 2016, at 4:46 AM, Denise R Avant via il-talk
<il-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Denise R. Avant
> President
> National Federation of the Blind of Illinois Live the life you want 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <nfbnewsline at nfb.org>
>> Date: January 26, 2016 at 5:24:33 AM EST
>> To: Denise Avant <davant1958 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Article from Daily Herald News Section 2016 01 24
>> 
>> Constable: Suburban blind activists seek accessible Internet. Burt
Constable . By Burt Constable bconstable at dailyherald,com related
advertisement video Living blind, dispelling myths The Americans with
Disabilities Act has been the law of the land since President George H.W.
Bush signed it on July 26, 1990. More than a quarter century later, local
activists with the National Federation of the Blind will travel to
Washington, D.C., this week (weather permitting) with a quest to make the
ADA the law of cyberspace. "The practical reality is that's not working,"
says Glenn Moore, a 33-year-old Elgin resident who serves as secretary of
the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. While
brick-and-mortar stores are built with adaptations to make them accessible
to people with disabilities, "things online aren't as well-established,"
Moore says. Using voice software that reads the words on a webpage, a blind
person might be getting the information he needs, only to be stopped by
something as simple as one of those Captcha boxes requiring that a human
type a message shown on the screen, or a PDF file that doesn't include an
audio file. "It depends on the website," says Leslie Hamric, 40, a
Schaumburg woman who volunteers as president of a local at-large chapter of
the NFB. Sometimes, even companies with accessible websites don't extend
that technology to their apps, she adds. "There's still a lot of work that
needs to be done," says Annette Grove, 76, a federal legislative director
for the Illinois chapter, who has been on many lobbying trips to Congress.
"The reality is some people simply cannot use some of the online tools. In a
2010 ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the ADA, President Obama
announced that new website accessibility rules issued by the Department of
Justice would be "the most important updates to the ADA since its original
enactment," and scheduled the changes to be enacted by January 2012. That
date later was extended until sometime in 2018. "We don't expect things to!
  change overnight. We want it to be the beginning of a larger
conversation," says Moore, who has gone to Washington on a couple of
lobbying junkets. A graduate of Elgin Community College, Moore worked for
seven years with the Salvation Army, operating social services for the
charity's Carpentersville Service Center. Now he's taking online classes
through the University of Missouri, working toward a business administration
degree and an MBA. "For many blind people, getting a college degree is very
important," Moore says, noting lobbyists will continue to pressure academic
institutions to make every class accessible to people with disabilities. The
group already has sponsors for bills pushing two other changes for people
with disabilities. The Transitioning to Integrated and Meaningful Employment
Act, known as TIME and presented in HR-188 , would ensure that blind workers
are covered under minimum-wage laws. Current laws allow some employers to
pay lower wages to people with disabilities. The Access to Air Travel for
Service-Disabled Veterans bill, HR-2264 , would add veterans with
disabilities to a program allowing military veterans to travel free on
military aircrafts. The NFB lobbyists also are hoping for a change in
international law through the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty , which would
eliminate some copyright infringements and allow for the sharing of millions
of printed works to be distributed across borders in Braille, audio or
digital formats. People with vision issues "continue to face a lot of
discrimination in hiring and access," says Grove, who lives in downstate
Belleville and travels often in her job conducting compliance audits for
Goodwill International. "The ADA has been around since 1990, and 26 years
later, 70 percent of blind people are still unemployed," notes Hamric, who
has worked for Easter Seals and the Lighthouse social service agency that
offers many programs for people with vision impairments. A graduate of the
Eastman School of Music, Hamric, who, with her husband, Andy, has a 6-!
 year-old son, Michael, teaches cello and also performs and sings with her
church's musical groups. "Our motto is 'Live the life you want,'" Moore
says. "We're working to make sure blind people can have full participation,
inclusion and equality in society. 
>> 
>> This article is provided to you as a courtesy of NFB-NEWSLINE? Online for
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