covid 19 – Page 2 – Ideas in ALL

International Day of Sign Languages: Promoting Sign Languages and Deaf Culture as part of Human Diversity

Social Structures

Click her for Irish Sign Language Version

Author: Léa Urzel – PhD Researcher ERC Project DANCING, ALL Institute – Department of Law, Maynooth University

Léa Urzel

Today, 23 September 2021, marks the fourth celebration of the International Day of Sign Languages. Currently, Covid-19 continues to affect the lives of people around the world. The ongoing pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges for all, including persons with disabilities. It has further exacerbated the barriers that Deaf people and other sign language users face in their daily lives and highlighted the difficulties encountered in accessing services and information, notably health services and public health information (Panko et al, 2021). At the same time, it has also enhanced the use of national sign languages in public broadcasting as numerous press conferences, public health briefings and other speeches by government officials continue to be broadcast featuring sign language interpretation.

Promoting Engagement in Sport for Persons with Disabilities Through Assistive Technology

Social Lives

Authors: Dr. Emma Smith, Postdoctoral Researcher, AT2030, ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University and Ana Geppert, Masters student of Global Health at VU Amsterdam, intern with the ALL Institute at Maynooth University, in partnership with Loughborough University.

Photo by Audi Nissen on Unsplash: ESPN WIde World of Sports Complex, United States Womens wheelchair basketball — Photo by Audi Nissen on Unsplash

In celebration of the launch of the #WeThe15 campaign; the largest ever global human rights campaign to increase awareness and social inclusion of people with disabilities through sport, we would like to share some of our recent research in the area. #WeThe15 is an acknowledgement that at least 15% of the world population – over 1 billion people – live with one or more disabilities, each of whom is entitled to all of the rights and freedoms, and the benefits of social inclusion experienced by people without disabilities worldwide. Of those rights affirmed in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport (Article 30) is one that we have had a recent focus on in our work.

Day of the Seafarer

Social Structures

Author: Joanne McVeigh, Lecturer at the Department of Psychology and the ALL (Assisting Living & Learning) Institute, Maynooth University

Joanne McVeigh

June 25^th marks the Day of the Seafarer, an international campaign aiming to increase governments’ support for seafarers during the pandemic, but to also more broadly ensure fair treatment and equitable employment conditions for seafarers. We often fail to appreciate our reliance on the world’s 1,647,500 merchant seafarers for the effective functioning of the global economy. However, international trade is underpinned by maritime transport, whereby approximately 80% of the volume of global trade and 70% of the value of global trade are transported by sea. In the book Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate, British author Rose George questioned: “Who looks behind a television now and sees the ship that brought it? Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination” (p. 2). Indeed, the importance of merchant shipping was brought into sharp focus by a container ship obstructing the Suez Canal in Egypt, through which more than 50 ships pass daily, constituting approximately 12% of world trade.

ALL Institute and the new HSE Digital Health Transformation Masters.

Social Structures

Authors: David Prendergast: Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Trevor Vaugh: PI at Mi:Lab, The Maynooth Innovation Lab and Assistant Professor in Department of Design Innovation, Linzi Ryan: Assistant Professor in Department of Design Innovation, Mac Maclachlan: Professor of Psychology and Social Inclusion, and Co-director of the ALL Institute

Image of a monitor in a casula office space - screen shows image of elderly persons hands resting on a walking stick on the top half white background on the bottom half. Text Reads CS6024 Digital Health and Wellbeing in the community. MSc in Digital Health Transformation. Underneath text reads: Trevor Vaugh & Linzi Ryan, David Prendergast & Mac MacLachlan, MAynooth University Dept of Design Innovation, Anthropology & Psychology. ALL Institute (Assisting Living and Learning). Logos on Bottom Left Hand Side of the Screen: HSE University of Limerick, Maynooth University, ALL Institute. — CS6024 Digital Health and Wellbeing in the community.
MSc in Digital Health Transformation.

On Wednesday 4th September 2019, the inaugural Health Service Executive ‘Digital Academy Forum’ was held at Dr Steeven’s Hospital in Dublin. During this meeting, Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer for the HSE announced plans for an ambitious and experimental Masters in Digital Health Transformation to help build digital skills and train future leaders in health service innovation. Co-designed between the HSE and several Irish Universities, including Maynooth, Limerick, UCD, DCU NUI Galway and University College Cork, the new degree runs over 18 months and is open to HSE employees and the General Public.

In the first semester of the degree, students completed five modules on topics ranging from eHealth Systems and Standards, Health Information Modelling and Governance, Research Methods and Digital Health Service Transformation. In the second semester, topics such as Digital Health Change Management, Clinical Decision-Making, Data Science and AI in Healthcare were covered, along with a design innovation module on Digital Health and Wellbeing in the Community run by the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute at Maynooth University. Building on these modules, students were expected to work on a substantial project designing, developing and deploying a digital solution within the Irish Healthcare system.

Celebrating the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development: A Contribution from the ReCreating Europe Project at Maynooth University

Social Structures

Author: Dr Laura Serra. Postdoctoral researcher ReCreating Europe, ALL Institute – Department of Law, Maynooth University

Laura Serra Profile Picture

Today, 21^st of May is the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. This is a date that we would like to mark within the remit of the ReCreating Europe project, funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme, by raising awareness about cultural diversity. We also wish to take this opportunity to highlight how the project aims to contribute to foster cultural diversity.

According to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which was adopted in 2005 and swiftly ratified by several States around the globe, cultural diversity “refers to the manifold ways in which the cultures of groups and societies find expression”, and “these expressions are passed on within and among groups and societies”. Furthermore, cultural diversity “is made manifest not only through the varied ways in which the cultural heritage of humanity is expressed, augmented and transmitted through the variety of cultural expressions, but also through diverse modes of artistic creation, production, dissemination, distribution and enjoyment, whatever the means and technologies used”.

Nothing About Us Without Us – Reflections on the European Day for Independent Living

Stories/Lived Experience

Author: James Cawley, Policy Officer, Independent Living Movement Ireland

James Cawley

First of all, a big thank you to the “ALL Blog” for asking me to contribute! When doing some reflections on the European Day for Independent Living I was thinking about what I would write. I’m writing this blog as a very proud Irish Disabled man who is a son, brother, husband, friend and co – worker. Quite often I’m asked to speak about Independent Living, so this particular piece is coming from my personal and professional lived experience. I attended mainstream education in primary and secondary and entered Maynooth University through the DARE scheme where I completed a BA in Business and Geography, a Professional Masters in Education and then a Certificate in Transformative education with the Turn To Teaching project there within the University. I’m delighted to write this blog as I’m a very proud “Maynooth Access Office” alumni – Rose Ryan and her team are legends in my book!! Of course, being from a big family and being the youngest of 9 siblings from rural County Longford I did everything I wanted from festivals to shark cage diving to ending up marrying my beautiful wife Ally and settling back in rural Longford.

I worked hard in college (and loved to party) and got to pursue my passion for teaching and then wanted to hone my activism skills and bring other people along with me as a collective. When the opportunity came up in Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI) I jumped at it and now work as policy officer for the National Disabled Persons Organisation (DPO). I also co – facilitate on the Disability Studies Certificate at Maynooth University.

For me, Independent Living is when all the pieces of the “Independent Living Jig saw” fit together which some include Housing, Transport, Employment and Personal Assistance Services (PAS). Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI) are a campaigning, national cross impairment disabled person’s organisation or DPO as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

Promoting Equal Participation and Eliminating Discrimination: Time to Change the Narrative.

Social Lives

Author: Mohamed Maalim – PhD Researcher, of the ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University

Blue Butterfly with Brown slate background. Zero Discrimination Day 01 March 2021 wording in top right hand corner

The Zero Discrimination day is celebrated annually on the 1st day of March, to reflect on our rich human diversity and the need for equal opportunity to enjoy fundamental human rights, and to fight against discrimination in all its forms and manifestations. This year, above all previous, the ongoing global COVID-19 Pandemic with all its disruptive nature and the misfortune it has brought and caused, has also offered humanity a glimpse of its ‘non-discrimination’ attribute. The advent of COVID-19 reinforced upon us that we are all equal as humans in our susceptibility, our fear and concern for self and others, and indeed in our hope of getting back to as ‘normal life’ as possible or whatever that ‘normal’ means.

Additionally, with Covid-19, we have adopted a common enemy enforcing upon us an almost military-type operation to fight back. The nations of the world in an unprecedented fashion formed ‘NATO’ type alliances and collaborative networks with the ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Big Pharma’ in a concerted effort to develop digital contact tracing and tracking apps‘ and vaccines, respectively. Individual governments assumed the role of commanding officers alongside senior health personnel, frontline healthcare workers, and other so called ‘essential’ workers as the foot soldiers of the operation, while the general public’s hearts and minds were won by calls to stay at home to suppress the virus.

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