Dreaming of a garden oasis? Allow me to share my experiences visiting the Garden for the Blind in Dublin, Ireland, and a sensory garden in Lund, Sweden. Each one teaches an accessibility feature communities can add to create beautiful, multisensory gardens. Descriptive Transcript Haben wears a short-sleeved navy blue dress, with her elbow resting … Read more
Increase your accessibility skills through the Teach Access Student Academy, a free virtual workshop on February 20 and 21. Descriptive Transcript Haben Girma, a Black woman in her thirties, stands in front of a blue wall. Haben: Do you want to learn more about accessibility? Teach Access is hosting a Student Academy. It’s free, it’s … Read more
Author Haben Girma and librarian Mychal Threets invite you to the Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, for a conversation on disability stories, mental health, and accessibility. Join us in person or on Zoom. ASL interpretation, captioning, and the space is wheelchair accessible. Saturday January 11, 2:00 pm Pacific Berkeley Public Library Page with Zoom Link: … Read more
World Braille Day is January 4th, the birthday of blind inventor and teacher Louis Braille. Help us spread Braille accessibility around the globe!
World Braille Day 2025
Descriptive Transcript
Two women sit in red chairs on the lower deck of a ferry. Haben Girma, a Black woman in her thirties, types on a wireless keyboard while Nessa Vlajkovic, a white woman in her twenties, reads on a Braille computer. Haben’s guide dog Mylo rests peacefully at her feet.
Haben (voiceover): We’re both Deafblind, but I don’t know Australian Sign Language and she doesn’t know American Sign Language.
The camera switches to an extreme close-up of round white dots rapidly popping up and down as they form characters on a BrailleNote Touch.
Haben (voiceover): We’re able to chat and form a friendship through Braille.
Haben and Nessa are now standing by a small cocktail table inside the Sydney Opera House. Nessa is typing on a keyboard and Haben is reading on a Braille computer, touching Nessa’s hand to sign reactions intermittently. Panoramic windows show the Sydney harbor bathed in late-afternoon sun. Mylo is at Haben’s feet looking around alertly.
Haben (voiceover): A lot of people who would benefit from Braille don’t have access. It’s World Braille Day, and we want to encourage all of you to ask your communities to invest in Braille. Ask your communities to have Braille classes available for everyone who needs it.
A photo of a tactile 3D model of the Sydney Opera House appears. On all four sides of the Opera House are print labels with Braille under them. The labels say: North Facing Harbour, East Facing Botanic Gardens, South Facing City, and West Facing Circular Quay.
Haben (voiceover): Ask your communities to have Braille signage around buildings.
Haben and Nessa are again seen by the cocktail table inside the Sydney Opera House. Nessa has the keyboard and is laughing as she types to Haben.
Haben (voiceover): And make sure websites and apps are also accessible in Braille.
Literacy ambassador Mychal Threets will chat with Haben Girma, author of Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law. Serving up captivating stories sprinkled with humor, their conversation will cover disability rights, mental health, and how to advocate for a barrier-free world. A Q&A will follow, and copies of Haben’s book will be available for … Read more
Dr. O uses a wheelchair, and he’s working toward a future where the idea of disabled people becoming doctors no longer surprises people. I had the honor of sharing the stage with him at the AAMC Annual Meeting, teaching medical schools about the need to increase accessibility for students. Dr. Oluwaferanmi O. Okanlami, MD, MS … Read more
I’m sitting at a picnic table with three colorful round pastries in front of me. Behind me is my German Shepherd Seeing Eye dog, and a cobblestone square lined with trees.
Haben: This is going to be my first vegan donut experience. These are from Brammibal’s, and they’re actually the first fully vegan donut shop in Europe. The one on my left has lots of crumbles on top. And it’s heavy with some kind of filling inside. It’s overwhelmingly sweet, which is what you want in a donut. And the crumbles are little bits of pistachio, and it’s a good balance of nutty pistachio and also creamy sweetness. I wouldn’t have known it was a vegan donut. It just kind of tastes like a nutty pistachio donut. And then there’s another one!
She picks up the middle donut.
Haben: So I want to be able to share with these videos and travels that disabled people can have fun, can enjoy life. And it’s really about making our world more accessible so disabled people have access to all the different opportunities available to nondisabled people. Even if it’s access to doughnuts! So, what is this one?
She takes a bite.
Haben: Strawberry! Sometimes donuts have very mild flavors, and this one has a very strong strawberry flavor. So I like that. The third and final donut!
She tries it.
Haben: It has more of a white chocolate flavor with bits of strawberry on top. My favorite is going to be the strawberry donut.
She sets the white chocolate donut back on the table.
Haben: The second is pistachio. Even though they’re vegan, they’re still donuts!
I’m thrilled to be speaking at Washington University’s Olin Business School on Friday, December 6th. The hybrid event in Saint Louis, Missouri is open to the public, and ASL interpretation will be provided. Register at this link:
For the first time, the World Health Summit held a high impact session centering health equity for disabled people. The enthusiasm of leaders from around the world underscored the need to address disability justice in all future health summits. I had the honor of moderating this historic session in Berlin on October 13, 2024. Key … Read more
Blind and sighted people can learn about cutting edge textiles at the Healthy Materials Lab. Taking a tactile tour introduced me to textures I’d read about but never felt, and others that completely surprised me. Located on the Parsons School of Design campus, part of The New School in New York City, the lab gives design students the opportunity to touch, smell, and experiment with innovative, healthier materials. Enjoy this descriptive video tour with Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice Sugandha Gupta and graduate research assistant Ahmad Abbasi.
Descriptive Transcript
Sugandha: So I would like to start with this kombucha leather. I’m holding it in my hands. It is a brownish color and it’s very translucent. So it’s like a blend of maybe a rust and a brown color. It’s translucent and it’s made out of kombucha tea with the fermentation process. It has a very strong, pungent smell, and you can almost smell the tea. And it’s very tempting. You almost want to eat it.
My name is Sugandha Gupta, and I’m the Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice at Parsons School of Design. I’m a white-appearing Indian woman with platinum blond hair and fair skin and violet eyes. And I’m wearing a black dress and a golden necklace. And today we are talking about three different sustainable, renewable leathers that are made out of natural materials like plants and kombucha tea.
Ahmad: Hello, I am Ahmad Abbasi. I am a researcher at Parsons Healthy Material Lab, and this is where we are right now. I am a white-appearing male with a bald head and a gray shirt. Yeah, we will be talking about three kinds of leather that we have at our Healthy Material Lab. And we will talk about why they are healthy and what they could be used for.
Sugandha: It is edible because it’s made out of an edible material, which is kombucha tea. It is very soft and malleable. And an interesting thing about this material is that it can melt with heat, because it is made with fermentation and it doesn’t have any coating on it, it’s natural. Do you want to talk about the circularity of this material?
Ahmad: Yeah. As you mentioned that it, it melts with temperature so that doesn’t make it durable, but that means it’s compostable or it’s biodegradable. So that, that adds to the sustainability or circularity of the product. And because it’s made of bio materials. So, yeah, that’s how we consider it healthy.
Sugandha: And it doesn’t require any kind of emissions of gases, so it doesn’t have any big carbon footprint. You would usually just make a big vat of the tea with fructose and then let it mold and then dry that to make this leather. In fact, in some of the areas of this leather you can even feel the bumps or the bubbles trapped inside it. So it’s a really fascinating material to work with. And what’s really interesting about it is that researchers have also used interesting medicines to inject in these kinds of leathers to also emulate the medicinal aspects of materials that we can wear on, on our bodies. So next we would like to talk about rhubarb leather. It is made out of rhubarb, which is…you want to elaborate on that?
Ahmad: It’s made out of protein. So protein fibers and yeah, it’s like, you can say like synthetic leather, but it’s made of healthy materials. We…we include labels in our libraries so researchers and students can come and read descriptions about the materials and what it’s used for.
Sugandha: And also this material looks just like…and just like a leather hide. So it has a tan color and it has a soft surface at the back, kind of like suede, but it’s maybe a little more rough than suede to touch and very smooth on the surface. And unlike natural animal leather, it is not as flowy or drapey. It does not have any stretch. So this is the second leather. And just so you know, rhubarb is a material that’s also used for making natural dyes. So it’s fascinating that you can also get this kind of leather out of it that can be applied in different materials, like bags or even belts, etc. And last but not the least, we would like to talk about mushroom leather.
Ahmad: Yeah, yeah. Mushroom or mycelium leather. It’s…it feels like foam a little bit. It’s usually not used in fashion, but used in construction tiling and insulation. It has a brown color. And yeah, as I said, has a foamy texture. Interesting thing about mycelium: it could be used in a wide range of products, not just leather, but in different applications as packaging or as furniture. And they take different shapes and forms.
Sugandha: And it also is interesting because it has a lot of marks, natural marks and bumps and dents on it. It’s very…cozy. Feeling like it has, it’s soft but you can also like kind of pinch it a little bit or press it a little bit, and it almost leaves kind of an indent. And it also just resembles a little bit of wood grain texture on the surface because it’s not even colored. There’s unevenness of the hues throughout it. It’s quite strong. It’s not stretchable, it’s very stiff material, but it’s very, very soft. And it has a lot of structure in it. So that’s really interesting about it. It’s very structured. So that’s our little insight about these natural leathers. And you can come to Healthy Materials Lab to check these materials out to see what they feel like, and experience them and touch them.
Ahmad: I’d like to add that mycelium is rapidly growing and easy to grow. So that also adds to the sustainability. So you can grow the mycelium, create the product, and at the end of life, just recycle the mycelium. Maybe use it for growing new mushrooms or mycelium for other products. And yeah, we can visit the Healthy Material Library. It has a wide range of materials and products, and textiles and construction and plastic–bioplastics. Which can help designers get an idea of what are available options to use in their designs.
