Best of the rest

As the new look Disability Now hits the streets, Sunil Peck checks out some of the other pan-disability magazines across the globe.

AUSTRALIA: LINK

Link bills itself as Australia’s leading cross-disability lifestyle magazine. It started out in 1980 as a small, state-based newspaper, but has evolved into a glossy magazine with readers across Australia.

It has around 50,000 readers and two-thirds of the company’s workforce are disabled. The magazine features readers’ letters as well as news, arts, sport, travel, technology and scientific and medical breakthroughs.

Denny Rosey, Link’s editor, says the magazine prints stories which “break stereotypical presentations of disability”. “Almost every story I have run, every person I have interviewed, has dealt with transformations of some kind.

People becoming mentally tough, resourceful, resilient, and aware. Many people have fought the weight of medical opinion, family or service providers who tried to deny them autonomy in every way. None see themselves as heroic.

A few, very few, accounts are raw, harsh and unrelievedly painful – for some people that’s how life is.”

The current issue has a story about a little girl who lost her eyes to cancer and has been given prosthetic ones, and a piece on the medical properties of chocolate. There is also a profile of a lecturer who uses a wheelchair, and features on employers’ attitudes to people with brain injuries, and a disabled man’s campaign to improve the representation

GREECE: DISABILITY NOW

Disabled people in Greece and Cyprus have been reading Disability Now magazine since 1993.

It is produced by an organisation that is also called Disability Now. Both the organisation and magazine are run mainly by disabled people, but they are completely unconnected with our magazine.

The Greek Disability Now has a circulation of 11,000.

The current issue contains news on the rights of disabled air and sea passengers, insurance, new medical achievements and technological innovations in the digital field and e-government.

There are also pieces on an international conference on disability and the mass media, the accessibility of Greek and French beaches and an interview with a famous Greek cyclist.

Anna Evangelinou, project manager at the organisation, who also writes for the magazine, says: “The aim of Disability Now is to produce and distribute all available information on disabilities as well as to empower people with disabilities with the appropriate technical knowledge and skills to manage their needs and to reconstruct their lives.”

INDIA: SUCCESS & ABILITY

Success & Ability has a reputation for championing the rights of disabled people. It is a quarterly publication and contains a mix of news, comment and features, including cases of discrimination in the workplace.

The current issue has articles on a job creation scheme for disabled people, the nutritional and medicinal values of tea and the experiences of the director and actors who made a popular film about a girl with communication difficulties.

Success & Ability is well-respected by India’s national press and high court judges have quoted the magazine in passing judgements. It first appeared on newsstands 13 years ago and was the brainchild of Jayshree Raveendran, an academic with a hearing impairment.

She began publishing it after setting up Ability Foundation, an organisation whose aim is to tackle negative attitudes towards disabled people.

She says she was initially laughed at and told “lames don’t like to read about other lames”. Undeterred, she wrote, edited, fundraised and distributed the magazine. She adds: “I publish a magazine that can lie on reception tables anywhere and everywhere.”

ARGENTINA: EL CISNE (THE SWAN)

El Cisne is a monthly, cross-disability publication. It has a a newspaper-like tabloid format, but is bound like a magazine.

The emphasis is on information, with details about disability organisations and national and international events and conferences. El Cisne also contains sections on sport, the arts and tourism.

A recent issue has an article about a tactile version of Picasso’s painting Guernica for visually-impaired museum visitors in Spain; the killing of 200,000 disabled children in Nazi Germany; and a piece on a disability programme on Venezuelan television.

Shortly after it first appeared in 1990, El Cisne expanded its circulation to Uruguay, Mexico, Paraguay and Chile, reaching a circulation of 35,000 a month.

There are three journalists and three administrative staff, none of whom are disabled, although the magazine does print articles from disabled readers.

Ricardo C Unamuno, El Cisne’s editor, says the magazine has made a lot of difference to disabled people because it has outlived other disability magazines and readers know that it will be out again the following month. “I think the publication generated a huge change concerning the way disabled people cope with their limits. They are not scared to go out anymore. They feel that they can face the world. They identify with the stories we tell and thank us for being here.”

SPAIN: CERMI

The monthly newspaper Cermi is published by an umbrella group of disability organisations in Spain. It focuses on disability news, comment and politics, and features coverage of international current affairs from a disability perspective.

The latest issue contains a report about how Cermi and the European Disability Forum (EDF) are organising a European conference covering the rights of disabled girls and women. There is also an article examining the accessibility of Spanish museums.

CANADA: ABILITIES

Abilities is Canada’s foremost pandisability lifestyle magazine. It is published by the Canadian Abilities Foundation and has around 80,000 readers. Abilities has a conversational style, and strives to give readers practical information.

The current edition contains an article on helping young adults make successful transitions to adulthood, an interview with Ontario’s new lieutenant-governor, David Onley, and a piece on respite homes.

There are also articles on woodworking and a disability arts and culture festival. Ray Cohen, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Abilities, sums up the magazine’s ethos. “Central to the underlying philosophy of Abilities magazine is the notion of inclusion. A basic premise is to support the integration of people with disabilities in all aspects of community life, while educating communities about the value of accepting the increased richness which comes with an inclusive society. We strive to include information on a cross-disability basis, representing diverse geographic locations across Canada.”

SOUTH AFRICA: ROLLING INSPIRATION

Rolling Inspiration is a bi-monthly glossy lifestyle magazine produced by the Quad Para Association of South Africa. The magazine has a circulation of 5,000 copies, and it is edited by Chris Reilly.

He says there are no other disability magazines like it in South Africa. “It is a lifestyle magazine for people with mobility impairments. It is aimed at those people and their families and colleagues. It is a very down-to-earth thing. We try to inspire people with it and help them to lead a more meaningful life.”

The current issue contains a profile of a reader who became paralysed after being shot, and articles on the impact of accessible environments on the country’s architectural heritage, sexuality and people with weak bladders, a motorcycle that accommodates riders in wheelchairs, and disabled parking bays, and sections on health, technology and sport. Although neither the editor nor the two other staff members are disabled, five of the ten regular columnists and contributors are disabled.

USA: MOUTH

The founder and editor, Lucy Gwin, describes Mouth – the “Voice of the DisLabeled Nation” – as a crossdisability publication that voices opinions that do not appear in other magazines. In an interview with the Disability Nation podcast last year, Gwin said: “I want to give everyday people a voice, a place where they can actually be heard. [Disabled people] have more truths to tell and better stories than the experts do.

I also thought that somebody ought to say stuff that nobody else in disability will say out loud; like how come disability is considered a crime? I mean, why else would you get locked up for it?” Gwin moved to Kansas because the state law prohibits citizens being moved into nursing homes against their will. Mouth first appeared in 1990. A recent issue carried pieces on enforcing discrimination laws, moves to oppose the legalisation of assisted suicide in Alaska and proposed tax cuts in the light of high unemployment among disabled people and the “captivity of disabled Americans in nursing homes and institutions".

Additional Reporting by: Luisa Montoreano, Lee Randall, Jane Danielson, Sajid Shaikh and Madeleine Kruger.