It's "Warren's World"...we're just living in it

For those of you who don't know, this is Warren Rupnarain. He's a 4th year social work student at Ryerson University and he's taken on an initiative that's TOTALLY AWESOME--he's a complete inspiration. After securing a placement position at The March of Dimes, Warren began a project, which has come to be called "Warren's World". Basically before the Federal Election he went to all of the candidates campaign offices to see how accessible they were to people with disabilities, and to find out what their position on a Canadians with Disabilities Act. He was met with a lot of "interesting" obstacles...and of course a bunch of lame excuses, but also a lot of people who were willing to support his cause. Warren found that about 95% of the candidates offices had some way of getting in in a wheelchair...pretty good, but not perfect! Warren is an amazing activist who is still tirelessly working to create a more accessible Canada--to break down both physical and attitudinal barriers. His journey has been video documented all the way and can be viewed on his website http://www.warrensworld.ca/ along with all of the other publicity and praise that Warren has been recieving lately. I highly recommend you check it out!

Warren was good enough to join us at RyeACCESS yesterday for a post-election review. He took us all the way through his adventure and showed us clips from his new Warren's World DVD. Getting to hear him speak was a great experience and once again RyeACCESS has scored another victory in the successful event department. Not only did we bring in members of the Ryerson Access Centre staff, I think a lot of eyes were opened to the world of disability issues. Journalism professor Peter Bakeogeorge brought his first-year newsreporting class (about 30 students) to cover the event for an assignment. So, not only did they get an interesting thing to cover, I think they were exposed to issues that they might not have been exposed to otherwise. I was really excited that RyeACCESS was able to raise awareness on such a large scale....Thanks Warren!

There will also be a podcast of the event on Warren's site featuring short interviews from myself, my coworker Aaron Broverman and RSU VP of Education Nora Loreto. Check it out!