Projects

LET’S is proud of our 17 year history of increasing awareness, providing quality educational opportunities, assessing components of communities with accessibility audits, advocating for people with disabilities, and creating support and community.

ADVOCACY

Advocacy is the core of our origin story and continues to be a main focus in our fifteen year history and present.

LET’S advocates for better living standards for people with disabilities on provincial disability (as well as others living in poverty), for communities to recognize and better represent their diverse population, for affordable, equitable, and accessible transportation, and to for the empowerment of those who feel their voices are ignored, steamrolled, or pushed to the side.

As an organization that began with a sole focus on people with disabilities and those within their support systems, we strive to improve accessibility, educate about people with disabilities and our needs, and promote the understanding that we will all need accessibility at some point in our lives. Over the years, our advocacy has grown to include people with disabilities as well as people without disabilities (including people with access needs who don’t self-identify as having a disability).

LET’S is a passionate advocate whose work covers many sectors: organizations, businesses, cities, individuals and government. We also have experience using the media to bring attention to issues.

LET’S has a great reputation for being an advocacy organization and for our approach of seeing the issue from all perspectives and working to come to a mutually beneficial solution.

We have advocated on behalf of people who have individual access issues with businesses, for people who need letters of support for funding for accessibility projects, to government on behalf of people living in poverty, to transit companies for better accessibility and increased financial accessibility, and to communities for access issues such as curb cuts, wayfinding (signage, directional cues), audible signal at intersection lights, and other important features. If we are unable to aid or support you, we usually have the resources and contacts to help send you in the right direction.

If you have an issue that needs advocacy assistance, please contact us at ‭(778) 723-5387
or lets@connectwithlets.org.

CONSULTATION

Our projects vary from one-time consultations to multi-year projects, such as with Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture, an organization seeking to represent their members and their access needs in museum and galleries. They hired LET’S to help create a tool and train their members to be able to create open dialogue with art venues to increase accessibility and visibility of artists with disabilities.

LET’S is well known and respected for our consultation services. Live Educate Transform Society was originally created by and for disabled people who knew that businesses, charities/non-profits, communities, educational institutions, individuals, non-profits, and government need accessibility, equity, and diversity information from those most impacted.

Consulting has been an ongoing priority for LET’S. Our consulting can be on the smaller scale of answer questions for individuals, such as questions from people newly disabled or for people who are doing accessibility renovations and/or upgrades or questions about appropriate language. We have done one-time projects such as participating in research projects, accessibility audits, and/or act as a Subject Matter Expert.

LET’S projects cover many issues: transportation, streetscapes, physical buildings, attitudinal accessibility, gatekeeping, customer service, research, and more.

EDUCATION

LET’S is committed to education. It is only by learning from one another’s lived experience and expertise that we can create the world a more equitable and just world.

LET’S educates community members, government, businesses, and organizations in a variety of ways. We deliver workshops on Breaking Barriers, Crip Kindness, Disability Awareness, Disability Justice, Front Line Staff Disability Awareness, Gender and Sexuality, Imposter Syndrome, Queer + Trans History (BC and Canada). We do presentations for conferences on accessibility, disability awareness, streetscapes, transportation, poverty, 2SLGBTQIA+ issues, and privileges and oppressions. We consult on projects and research. We answer individual questions from people who contact our organization. We advocate for disabled people with intersecting identities. We create resource guides regarding accessibility and disability, such as our social media accessibility resource guide. And we teach people how to use their own voice to help shape the world.

Examples of Workshops:

  • Abilities in Mind Conference: “Embracing Ability: Redefining a Diverse Workforce”
  • Burnaby Access Advisory Committee: “Accessible and Equitable Practices for Streetscape Design”
  • Cities Fit for Children Conference: “Understanding Disability and Universal Design
  • Connecting Communities Youth Summit Conference on Transit, People and Places:
  • ConvergeCon: “Intro to Disability Justice” (with a focus on navigating sexual relationships while disabled)
  • Designing for Transit: “Accessible Transportation System, Connecting People to Their Community”

GO TO ALL WORKSHOPS

POVERTY

LET’S is dedicated to addressing the issues that affect those who live in poverty and raising awareness about the people affected, including the working poor and those on disability or welfare. As part of our ongoing poverty advocacy, we meet with government, advocate for better disability, shelter, and welfare rates, and co-write reports (see below) that have moved policy forward and enhanced the lives of people within British Columbia. We center decolonization as we do this work and apply an intersectional lens to ensure we are truly representing the whole person.