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<\/p>\nCommunity members in Brampton are aiming to make Halloween more accessible for children with mobility issues and other disabilities.<\/p>\n
Hundreds attended the first-of-its-kind Halloween Accessibility Village outside the Paul Palleschi Recreation Centre on Saturday. The flat, low-barrier and low-sensory environment mimicked a residential street where kids and their families could trick-or-treat and participate in activities.<\/p>\n
“What people don’t realize is most homes have accessibility issues. Many have stairs, some can be overly frightening and that causes a state of overwhelm for some children,” said organizer Gunjan Sharda.<\/p>\n
“So our goal is to get the message out that Halloween should be for children of all abilities. And so if you just aim to reduce those barriers, you can make Halloween more inclusive.”<\/p>\n
The event was run in partnership with real estate brokerage RE\/MAX Canada and grassroots agency Treat Accessibly Canada, which since 2017 says it has made 300,000 doorsteps across the country more accessible to children during Halloween. It’s working with 10 RE\/MAX partners across Canada, with four in Ontario, including Brampton in Peel Region.<\/p>\n
Sara Martins and her kids attended the village after struggling to find accessible Halloween events.<\/p>\n
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Sara Martins is a mom of two special needs boys, Nate, 8, and Miles, 4, who uses a wheelchair. She says activities like trick-or-treating can often make her kids feel left out because of accessibility barriers. (Isha Bhargava\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The mom of two special needs boys, including a four-year-old who uses a wheelchair, says there are few options for her kids to enjoy Halloween with their peers due to accessibility barriers.<\/p>\n
“Our biggest hurdle is houses with stairs,” said Martins. “So when we go trick-or-treating for a house, a lot of times his brother will go up, point down and say ‘Could you give me some for my brother?'”<\/p>\n
“It’s nice to have something that’s just for them where they get to see other kids that are the same as them and don’t feel like they’re left out,” she added.<\/p>\n
Inclusion was the feeling April Creamer also left with. Her 12-year-old step-daughter Daria Alcomo uses a wheelchair and often can’t attend festivals because of challenges including large crowds, uneven pavements and doors that aren’t wide enough.<\/p>\n
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Creamer said it’s frustrating and stressful having to constantly make sure her child is safe in a crowd. She finds people tend to overlook Alcomo or run into her because they’re not paying attention.<\/p>\n
“To actually be somewhere she can literally go through and do whatever she wants here, she doesn’t have to worry about getting hit by a car, or people running into her, or not being able to get into something … it’s fantastic,” she said.<\/p>\n
While both Creamer and Martins believe awareness around improving accessibility has increased, they say change isn’t happening fast enough. They say people need to consider the impact exclusion can have on families where children require special assistance.<\/p>\n
“Every kind of kid wants to be able to go trick-or-treating and stuff,” said Creamer, adding that people could stand outside buildings that aren’t easily accessible to give out candy, rather than someone going to a doorstep on behalf of a child in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Martins said events like the Halloween village are a good reminder for why accessibility is important but that also needs to extend to other public spaces like parks, changing tables and others.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile organizer Sharda said she hopes this event can become an annual affair and inspire other communities to prioritize accessibility so that all children can feel included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community members in Brampton are aiming to make Halloween more accessible for children with mobility issues and other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194339],"tags":[51759,49,48],"class_list":["post-957997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brampton","tag-brampton","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}