Warren Rupnarain's Election Tour and Ryerson's Fashion Show

Warren Rupnarain provided some of the most insightful – and entertaining – coverage of the 2006 federal election. As part of an advocacy project for the Ontario March of Dimes, Rupnarain, a student of social work at Ryerson University who has cerebral palsy, made surprise visits to candidates in the Toronto area, quizzing them about where they stand on disability issues and checking out the accessibility of their offices. He posted reports at www.warrensworld.ca, which got over 100,000 hits. We’re looking forward to Rupnarain’s next appearance!

On April 6, Ryerson University in Toronto held its annual Mass Exodus fashion show of designs by its fashion students. For the first time, the show was accessible to fashion lovers with vision and hearing disabilities with LiveDescribe video description and a webcast with captions as part of the CulturAll Project by the Centre for Learning Technologies at Ryerson and the Adaptive Technologies Resource Centre at the University of Toronto. The Department of Canadian Heritage provided funding.

“We have some wonderful positive feedback,” says Deborah Fels, an associate professor at Ryerson. “Comments included, ‘The describer had a lot of personality and she captured the feelings of the fashion show’ and ‘I liked the detail and learning about the history of the fashions.’”

Organizers hope that the show will set a new standard for live events. Check out the webcast at http://www.ryecast.ryerson.ca/dmpstreams/massexodus2006/index.asp.