AccessAbility Week celebrates city's progress and proposes next steps

Devin Sisak is passionate about making the City of Cambridge more accessible.

With a son that uses a wheelchair, Sisak has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of different municipalities' efforts to make life more equitable for those living with a disability.

When he arrived in Cambridge three years ago, he decided to put his experiences into practice by joining the city's accessibility and advisory committee. The goal of the committee is to enhance community services and improve the lives of residents with disabilities.

"I wanted to have hands-on input and provide advice on what would make the community the best for my son," Sisak said about what motivated him to ensure his voice was heard.

"We'd go to events and there could always be ways to be better. It wasn't that the city was doing a bad job with accessibility, but there's always room for growth."

To further bring attention to the issue, Sisak is helping to run a National AccessAbility Week kick off event at city hall on May 25.

The event will see community organizations provide resources about programs and services, while serving as a networking opportunity to advance the work in the city.

"A lot of National AccessAbility Week programs are online through workshops," Sisak said.

"When people are interacting with people with disabilities, they grasp the value in it. They see people with disabilities can do everything able bodied people can but in different ways."

Since arriving in Cambridge, Sisak has been impressed by the work city staff has done to improve accessibility.

He points to recent and ongoing projects as examples of the strides that have been made.

"A lot of things are going on that are positive and pushing for accessibility, like the new soccer complex. The city really collaborated with the committee and took recommendations from people with lived experience," he said.

"It’s beautiful, you can wheel down to the bleachers which can sometimes be hard to get to. There are also nice universal change rooms."

Staff have also met with the committee monthly to discuss aspects of the new rec complex.

It's all part of a push to make the city an example of what an inclusive community should look like.

"I think with our facilities, other municipalities will look to us and want to be like Cambridge," Sisak said.

"We want to show the public the value in it."

The event next weekend, which features a live DJ, begins at 11 a.m. and runs until 3 p.m. at 50 Dickson St.

The accessibility and advisory committee is currently looking for new members.

Anyone interested in joining can visit cambridge.ca.

National AccessAbility Week runs from May 26 to June 1.