The City of Halifax limits access to summer camp to only three weeks for kids with disabilities. Kids without disabilities can go for the full eight weeks. Not only is that unfair, it also breaks the law, write the parents of twin boys with disabilities who are missing out as a result.
Cuts to the Early Literacy Support Program reveal how the educational establishment in Nova Scotia no longer believes in equal opportunity and inclusion, writes Nancy Spina, a former teacher and a parent of kids with disabilities.
“If we care for our children and friends who live with disabilities, we need to broaden our horizons beyond the school. We need to come to terms with the fact that families with members with disabilities are trapped in an ableist society, one which is also deeply heterosexist, racist and classed,” writes Nancy Spina..
” I am the mother of a nine-year old boy living with autism in a province that has been defined as one of Canada’s autism wastelands, given its lack of services and funding,” writes Nancy Spina in an open letter to Minister Kelly Regan. “Outdated and inflexible criteria have an impact on children with disabilities and on the women who care for them who lose the opportunity of providing for their families, and having fulfilling careers.”