Resource Library

Tip Sheets
Hands holding an iphone with speech accessibility options on screen.

5 Essential iPhone Apps for Blind or Visually Impaired Travelers

Blind Square

This connects with your iPhone's GPS functions to bring you live vocalized information about where you're at and where you're going. Open the application and let it run in the background, as it tells you the street you're walking on, addresses that you pass, cross streets, and landmarks of interest. Do searches for the nearest breakfast spot or the convention center, and Blind Square will help get you there. It is excellent for getting oriented to a new place, or just getting the name of that street when there is no one around.

Tip Sheets
Volunteer to India smiles widely with arched entryways behind

What’s Your Volunteer Abroad Style?

To make the most out of your service abroad, it’s important to carefully examine your interests and skills, and your openness to partner with community members abroad who will have different perspectives. While it is not your role as a volunteer abroad to swoop in and save the day by helping others, neither should it be a situation where you are sidelined from participating because no one thought to plan for disability access. After all, interdependent partnerships rely on recognizing the contributions of everyone.

Best Practices
Flowchart of Empower Partnership Model. 19 NGO in-country partners, 19 DPO in-country partners, and 19 U.S. partners formed 19 international teams which resulted in 57 organizations changing communities.

An Innovative New Partnership Model

Empower Partnerships created 19 teams, each a triad:  A U.S. organization matched with two partner organizations from another country, one disability-led and the other committed to disability inclusion.

U.S. representatives first traveled to their partners’ home countries to gain an understanding of disability access and inclusion in their communities.

Best Practices
Team Serbia lined up behind a counter of food

Team Serbia: Tackling Media's Role in Disability Advocacy

Two partners from Serbia and one from the U.S. joined forces to reimagine the use of the media as a platform for disability rights advocacy. Media can be a powerful tool for empowerment. The rapidly changing media landscape gives people with disabilities the tools to tell their stories directly.

“The media have perhaps the most important role in disability advocacy,” said Jelena Jovovic of the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Novi Sad, Serbia. “We receive the majority of our information through the media and, based on this information, we form our attitudes.”

Jelena, along with Mima Ruzicic-Novkovic of Center Upright Living, a Disabled Peoples’ Organization in Novi Sad, and Beth Haller and Rhonda Greenhaw of Towson University’s Department of Mass Communication located in Maryland, USA, met in Serbia for a week to jumpstart their collaborations.

Best Practices
Team Macedonia of seven women gathered around laptop

Partners for Accessible Healthcare in Macedonia

How do you describe a partnership that not only achieves its goals, but transforms the entire way in which each partner works? MIUSA's Empower Partnerships program simply calls it, “Team Macedonia.” With support from the U.S. Department of State, MIUSA brought together organizations from around the world for a new style of collaborative program designed to advance disability rights.

Best Practices
Members of Team Mongolia with training attendees

In Mongolia, Rights Start with Inclusive Education

When asked why they had chosen to work together, the Association of Parents with Disabled Children (APDC) and All for Education! (AFE) National Civil Society Coalition made a simple but powerful prediction about their partnership: “Our voices would be louder together.” Given the challenge they faced, all their voices were needed.

Best Practices
Children holding banner for Empower reading camp

Adapting Techniques for Literacy in Malaysia

Haziq sings a solo in front of his classmates at the closing ceremony of his weeklong reading camp. It’s a small crowd, and he hasn’t memorized the lyrics. Instead, Haziq is reading them from a screen at the front of the room. It may not seem like much, but to Haziq, it could be the very turning point of his life. And it took three people traveling halfway around the world and back to get him there.

Tip Sheets
Power wheelchair user with breathing machine seeks assistance from another person.

Tips on Traveling with a Ventilator or Breathing Machine

When traveling internationally, you may need electrical converters/adaptors for respiratory equipment. Also airline personnel may request detailed information about its operation and use. Know your settings and how to do basic setup and problem-solving, and learn other tips for traveling safely.

Tip Sheets
Hands giving thumbs up and thumbs down

DOs and DON'Ts of Fundraising

DOs

Convey courtesy and respect.

Remember to say “thank you” throughout the process of requesting funds, even if a potential donor can’t offer funds.

Tip Sheets
Money spills out of a jar labeled "My travel fund"

Fundraising 101

You can build a community of support through fundraising, especially when it comes to opportunities that will advance your personal and professional goals. Family members, friends, teachers, local businesses and nonprofits can all work with you to help make your dream a reality. Kick off your fundraising efforts with these ideas.

Tip Sheets
Money in a padlock

How to Choose a Budget-Friendly Exchange Program

Research the cost of living in cities worldwide.

Depending on the exchange rate, you may want to select a location where the rate works in your favor. In general, towns and small cities are usually more affordable than large cities.

Consider going to non-traditional locations.

Costs for programs in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, or Southeast Asia are often lower than in Western Europe, Japan and Australia. And, even better, studying in these locations may also increase your chances of getting a scholarship!

Tip Sheets
Exchange staff smiles with blind youth

High School Exchange Programs at the U.S. State Department

The full participation of youth with disabilities in international exchange is a critical step in increasing independent living skills, accessing post-secondary education opportunities, and pursuing competitive employment. International exchange also provides an understanding and respect for other peoples and cultures, cross-cultural competencies, including foreign language proficiency, and a true global perspective.

Tip Sheets
Annie who is hard of hearing volunteered in Ghana

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Participants in International Exchange

The experience of being in a completely new environment, disability or not, can be very challenging. As a Deaf or Hard of Hearing person, these new environments may present communication challenges that you haven’t experienced before.

Tip Sheets
African American man in a manual wheelchair strolls along with others in Japan

What To Do When Insurance Doesn't Cover It

Participants who receive funding for a personal assistant through Medicaid or other government support are not able to use that funding once outside their home country. Travel insurance companies typically do not pay for personal assistants for daily care overseas or durable medical equipment that is not related to a first occurrence of an illness or injury overseas.

Since these costs are unlikely to be covered for people with existing needs, exchange programs or institutions should work with a participant to cover the costs.

Tip Sheets
Woman getting henna painted on the palm of her hand

Why Pre-Existing Conditions Matter in Insurance

Plans offered to international exchange participants for less than a year of coverage are not fully licensed products so changes to U.S. health laws through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) do not apply. These plans can increase costs, have pre-existing condition exclusions, or deny enrollment to an individual based on health status.

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