Iyiola Olafimihan | Inclusive Spaces Interview
In this piece, we continue our conversations with practitioners and advocates for more inclusive environments. Iyiola Olafimihan is the Information Lead at Camden Disability Action and a Non-Executive Director at the Global Disability Innovation Hub
Tell us about your career background?
I qualified in Nigeria as a Lawyer. I was called to the Nigerian bar in 1990 and I practised for about a year or two and decided to move into the corporate world. I joined a Bank, in their legal department, and that is where I developed my career as a Legal Manager.
During my career in the Bank, I became an activist, because my sister met a gentleman at a trade fair. He was one of the participants at the trade and he was demonstrating what he could do by converting cars, what we now call assistive technology. I remember when he converted my car I never had any problem with the equipment he constructed in his workshop. We met up as we both had the same condition and impairment, Polio. We were both mobility impaired and he inspired me to look beyond myself, looking beyond just working in the Bank and feeling cool with myself.
When I met him it got me into thinking about disabled people's rights. The problem with the built environment, infrastructure, how disabled people have largely been excluded from participating in society and how disabled people are seen as less human.
There was no social security for people or policies. If they even had them those policies were never, ever implemented. It was a policy statement by the dictator in 1992 that stated that every company should reserve 2% of their vacancy capacity for disabled people in their workforce. My aunt told me about it and I used it in my favour to get a job in the bank. This policy should have been enforced but when we went to see the chairwoman of the bank, she wasn't even aware of its existence.
My mentor, the gentleman I met at the trade fair, encouraged me to join a group of activists. I joined their group of activists and we started looking for ways to bring awareness to the Nigerian population. My main contribution in the group was using my legal skills to research the different legislation in countries tackling disability or discrimination against disabled people, especially in Africa and also in the Northern hemisphere, like the UK, the US. Some of the laws I analysed back then was Ghanaian law on disability, Uganda disability laws, the American with Disabilities Act 1990 and the UK Disability Discrimination Act.
I then started looking at how I could develop my skills in disability, activism, and campaigning, and what I would really need, technically, to help me grow. I wanted to do a Master’s degree abroad to learn what is being done around disability. I chose London Metropolitan University. I chose a Master's degree in Human Rights and Social Justice. I was almost 40 when I came in 2006. My dad didn’t understand why I was doing this – he thought I was always constantly wanting to prove things. I left, came here and got my degree. Just after I finished my master’s degree, I had an accident and was in the hospital for six months.
A few months after my recovery, I joined the national disability organisation, Scope as a Capacity Building Officer on a project they just got funded for by the National Lottery.
The charity had a partnership with six other small or very small grassroots disabled people's organisations. When we say disabled organisations, we mean organisations led and controlled by disabled people ourselves. The programme was to capacity-build disabled people’s connections across England. That was my first job in the UK.
I worked at Scope for the duration of the project and left to work for Leonard Cheshire Disability and later a DPO in Camden. There was a period when I was unemployed and was volunteering at different organisations including Disability Rights UK. It was during this period that I saw an advertisement to join the Global Disability Innovation Hub as an advisory board member. I applied and I was lucky enough to get the role. I liked the idea of what they were doing; the vision was to invest back in the global south and to link assistive technology to independent living for disabled people. Recently, I’ve been made a Non-Executive Director on the GDI Board.
Can you describe what an inclusive environment looks or feels like?
In my own perspective, an inclusive environment should be an environment where barriers do not exist between different types of users in that built environment. When we talk about inclusive environments, sometimes people just think about wheelchair users. There's much more to it. It's not just about providing step-free or lift access. Or things like that. It is how that environment, or that structure, includes the diverse groups of people in society, including non-disabled people who may have babies in pushchairs, or older people. Everyone in a diverse society should be able to use the built environment and systems and participate equally. In an inclusive environment, you also consider people with communication impairment or deaf people. Or people with cognitive impairment, people with learning difficulties or learning disabilities. An inclusive environment should also obviously include people that do not have English as their first language. It should embrace the diversity in our society and embrace all impairment groups.
We know the Equality Act 2010 talks about making reasonable adjustments for disabled people, however, the Equality Act is not Building Regulations. It just says make reasonable adjustments and it leaves it to your imagination or choice and obviously not all businesses or service providers do that. When you say inclusive environment, it could actually extend to a disabled person's home.
Housing is a whole different issue as well. Let me share my thoughts on this. So, where for example, you have a service that is operating from a Grade One listed building, it means you have very limited accessibility and the service provider cannot make a lot of changes because of the heritage and the building is listed. So what a service provider can do to make that built environment inclusive is to offer the service to disabled users in their own homes, at the same price as it would have been offered in that built environment. It's like an outreach model that can be delivered maybe in a community centre at certain times of the week for people who are not able to access a building.
“Inclusive environments matter, especially for disabled people because that's my identity.”
Why does an inclusive environment matter?
Inclusive environments matter, especially for disabled people, because that's my identity. First of all, it says you are valued as an equal member of society. It also gives us the same level playing field as non-disabled people and provides fairness and access. It empowers. It demolishes barriers that stop us from accessing that particular environment. And, it sits with what we call the Social Model of Disability. This says that disabled people are not disabled because of an impairment, but because of how society is structured or arranged to create barriers and oppression for disabled people.
“So disability for us, is a social construct, not a medical one, not a medical tragic phenomenon. I think personally society needs to look at people with disabilities differently.”
If you understand the Social Model of Disability, then you will also understand why an inclusive environment is so important to disabled people. It's a model that says when you remove barriers that stop disabled people from participating on an equal basis with their non-disabled peers, then impairment will not really matter anymore. I don't look at disabled people from the medical public's point of view, but more from a social point of view, you know? So disability for us is a social construct, not a medical one; it’s not a medical tragic phenomenon. I think personally society needs to look at people with disabilities differently. I think it's about perception. They are just like us. But obviously, they may have different needs and it's about providing choice.
The Social Model of Disability is actually the foundation of most of the laws that we have now. It's the basis for the Equality Act. The Equality Act, though it was passed in 2010, had different elements in it and formed the basis for how laws were eventually drafted to take into consideration that disabled people are actually disabled, not by the impairment, but by the environment. It's the societal environment that needs to change to accommodate people with impairments and obviously the built environment is a major, major part of that conversation.
For example, you have a building that is not step-free. It's obvious that the wheelchair user will not be able to access it. Then you have a building that is step-free but you've got so many floors in it and there is no lift so it is obvious that the person will not be able to get to the next floor. The developers get wheelchairs, obviously, because it's a physical thing. It was very prominent in the days when the Social Model developed, and it was actually developed by mostly wheelchair users. So in its first, very early days it was wheelchair or physical impairment focused, but now it's been expanded and we are even now looking at it from an intersectional perspective, because as Black, disabled people, we sometimes think that even the Social Model is not enough for us.
“When people who are intersectional in society are talking about intersectional identities it puts more oppression on people with different characteristics or identities. If you're a Black woman who is a wheelchair user or disabled, you have extra layers of oppression, not only from being a disabled person but also from being Black.”
When we are talking about intersectionality, we are talking about intersectional identities which put more oppression on people with different characteristics or identities. So if you’re a Black woman who is a wheelchair user or disabled, you have extra layers of oppression, not only from being a disabled person but also from being Black. And if you happen to also be a member of the LGBTQ community, that's another extra layer of oppression and discrimination for that person. It is completely different from the experience of a White disabled woman who has just that one or two layers of oppression, being a woman and being a disabled person, and obviously they do not have the extra oppression of being Black or Brown. We are now looking into it to see how the Social Model can be modified to start including intersectional issues.
What are the impacts of a non-inclusive environment?
It's social exclusion so you're not able to participate. It will also lead to unemployment for people who can work but are excluded because the environment is not inclusive enough. You know, for me, one experience I had in this country a long time ago was being excluded from a gig my network organised in a location in central London. The coordinator of the event usually picks accessible venues because of me but on this one occasion the venue which was advertised as being accessible was not because the lift was broken, and the operators did not change the condition of the lift on their website because the manager assumed no disabled person will be going to the gig! I always do something before I go anywhere, I check their websites to find out if they have an access statement. Access statements are important because they give important information about the layout of their venues, access features and whether you can come with a PA or carer on one ticket.
So, when I got there, the manager said they didn't know a disabled person was coming and I said, okay, so he decided to find a solution by taking me round to the goods area and using a goods lift, which is not the best. And that's how I was able to access the venue. Everyone apologised and all that and the only thing I gained from that was an embarrassment, because I had to go through the back and people saw me coming through and, the embarrassment I got was because a non-inclusive environment can also embarrass people. But I gained one thing that day. An extra free shot of whiskey!
Another experience I had was when I wanted to go and watch a film. It was in Camden, and again, I always checked the websites to find out whether there are lifts and when I got there with my friend to go watch a movie, they claimed that the lift broke down that same day. I asked if they updated their website. We had this conversation and argument and the only way they could compensate me was to give me a voucher, free tickets to come to watch that movie when they fixed their lift. But it was so disappointing that they did not update their website. I understand that a lift can break down and that's why we always in this field of access work insist on two lifts at least.
I'm also a member of two access panels: Network Rail and the Museum of London Access Panel. We meet periodically to discuss access issues and inclusive issues.
How can designers keep users at the centre of their designs?
By having a diversity impact assessment plan. Consulting with different groups of users. These are like consumer forums; they should be focused, on the level of co-designing things. You bring them in at the inception of the design stage and not just like an add-on to your design process. We are not talking about co-producing per se, because people don't have the technical expertise, but bringing on different users at the very early stage, listening to them, listening to their concerns, listening to their expertise because they're experts by experience and learning from them and then taking them along stage by stage in the design process.
Can you recommend any projects which are inclusive?
The building where I work at the moment is hyper accessible. In 2014 I was part of the process of helping the Council establish a centre for Independent Living in Camden. I worked for an organisation as the Engagement Officer, and I helped to bring people to consultation meetings of the council. They eventually built the Greenwood Centre in Camden. I work in that building. I work for a very small charity called Camden Disability Action. It is a user-led organisation. The Greenwood Centre is one building that I can say is inclusive, it's got an induction loop - a piece of access equipment for people with hearing impairments. It has automatic doors, even the kitchen that is now being used has been constructed for people with learning disabilities, to be very accessible and inclusive of our users.
Image of the Greenwood Centre for Independent Living courtesy of AHR Architects
Recently at COP26, Israel’s energy minister, Karine Elharrar, could not attend the conference. It is natural to expect that a world event on this scale will be inclusive of all. How can we ensure that situations do not happen?
The lack of preparation, the lack of not involving an Access Specialist showed that they are not seeing disability as a core element of their event. They were probably thinking, oh, because we're talking about climate and all that, disability is not prominent in it and forgetting completely that the more we experience all these changes to our climate, the worse it gets for disabled people. When you have erosions and floods, who are the people most affected by this?
“Even with COVID 19, who are the people most affected by the disasters? It’s disabled people. If you don't have an accessible or inclusive environment, you can't even escape with your wheelchair or if you are visually impaired, it's difficult.”
Even with COVID 19, who are the people most affected by the disasters? It’s disabled people. People can't escape from an inaccessible environment, for example, in the global south. The most affected are usually older people, children, and women. If you don't have an accessible or inclusive environment, you can't even escape with your wheelchair or if you are visually impaired, it's difficult. For them to not even think about that as part of the core element of COP26 is alarming. It's a big failure and they should be ashamed of themselves, to be honest.