About

This is a blog to document the process of adapting a flat/apartment for myself as a wheelchair user. I have been for many years making do – negotiating around the demands of having kids and a husband who would rather spend the money traveling that doing up a home or making adaptations. I think I preferred to be as ‘normal’ as possible and did not make allowances for the need to adapt.

But now I live on my own, I realise I had better make adaptations so as I can live safely and comfortably. They are not concessions to my disability but necessities.

I also realised that there was not much information ‘out there’ to show how it is done, how it can be done and what has been tried. This blog is to capture the process, the narrative and give an idea to another disabled person how this one medium sized two bedroom, one with en suite, city center apartment was adapted.

I am an advocate of inclusive design – but this isn’t just about the technicalities, I also hope to show aesthetic taste in making a home and would like to think that I dabble a little in interior design and how to maximise the use of living space. I have a multi cultural background I would like my living space to reflect that.

Link to connect culture

Connect culture is about building an inclusive world

This blog is a side project running alongside with connect culture which is mainly about inclusive travel. Both blogs stem from the need for inclusive design and has the strong thread of disability issues and barriers and solutions for inclusive living.

Connect culture is about building an inclusive world bringing people and cultures together – in this case, specifically but not exclusively, the disabled and non disabled people. We all have multiple identities with faimilies, friends and communities and increasingly we are cosmopolitan beings, we enjoy and share different and separate cultures.

Connect culture seeks to build bridges, make accessible places and information to people who needs it – which is affordable.

About Eleanor

My profile at LinkedIn

Contact address – eleanor at connectculture.co.uk

I am starting as a social entrepreneurship in Connect Culture. Its main focus at the moment is getting an inclusive travel service up and running – launching in January. It was great to be given an award by UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs.

This travel service would be a 3 tiered service and advice and information on 3 cities – London, Paris and Strasbourg.

Why those 3 cities? I love them and I do not believe in specialising in places where I have not much experience of. I will research and have visited places and itineraries that I recommend. Each would have been user tested.

I believe in inclusive design and so other topics will also crop up which are not necessarily travel related.

Here is a video  of me in an interview with David Bancroft of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum

Short profile

I was born and bred Malaysian of Chinese ethnicity – thereby I was brought up in a multicultural neighbourhood in a country with a Muslim majority, and significant percentage of Hindus, Taists, Budhists and Christians. By faith I am a Catholic with Zen tendencies and a huge Anglican influence as a result of marriage. I speak four languages reasonably, my mother tongue is Cantonese, my working language is English and I have picked up Mandarin and French along the way but my Malay is very rusty!

I have lived in 3 continents of South East Asia, Europe and the USA, lived and worked in Malaysia, UK (Yorkshire, South east, West Midlands), France (Strasbourg) and the United States (Texas and Massachusetts). I think this gives me the widest perspective culturally. I am not a tourist, I believe tourism is a form of consumerism but I believe in travel because it widens our horizons about different cultures and perspectives and make you open to opportunities and meeting people.

And I am disabled, I am a wheelchair user. I need facilities to be accessible for me to be able to get there. I frequently travel on my own – I like traveling independently. I have to do a lot of research before hand to make sure I can do that – however, there is always an element that you cannot completely prepare for and that is the challenge and adventure. I do not enjoy it when my battles is with people’s attitudes – that they have put barriers to stop me from functioning well. This can be their ignorance or bureaucracy or by having physical barriers when they were not needed (such as steps or stairs)

I am a parent of two beautiful young people – I understand the joys and challenges of that. I am also a divorced woman and appreciate that journey and the inequalities that still exist between man and woman.

Lastly, I am an information specialist as well as an access advisor - I believe in the power of good and accessible information. I have the paper qualifications for those roles. Currently I am a member of Equality 2025, Access Association representative to DPTAC (Disabled people Transport Advisory Committee), member on the British Council Disability Advisory Panel. I am also a member of the Women Policy Forum (W.A.I.T.S) in Birmingham and other disability groups locally.