Achi news desk-
Starting Tuesday, travelers inside Greater Moncton Romeo LeBlanc International Airport will see more than just boarding passes and bags thanks to a new global initiative that aims to put accessibility at the forefront.
The airport has chosen to join the hidden disability sunflower lanyard programme, an initiative which started in England in 2016, and officials hope it will have a big impact on people traveling with hidden disabilities.
“Everyone is dealing with something, but we can’t always see what someone is dealing with on the inside so it’s that subtle way for someone to communicate, ‘Maybe I’m going through something or maybe I’m I have a condition you can’t see,’ but it may create additional concerns or concerns as they go through the airport”, explained Courtney Burns, president and CEO of the Greater Moncton International Airport Authority.
The bright green and sunflower yellow necklaces are more than just a visual reminder.
Burns says airport staff went through training with Accessibility New Brunswick before officially launching the program on Tuesday.
“If you see someone with a lanyard on they may need some help and support, they may need help navigating their way through the airport, they may need to have something explained to them in a different way to others, the accommodation they may want is going to be different from person to person,” he said. “So what we learned is that it’s important to ask, how can I help you? Do you need any help today?”
She says the Romeo LeBlanc is one of the first airports in Atlantic Canada to adopt the initiative, but it is spreading quickly among airports and airlines and she expects that Maritime airports will others asking questions about jumping on board.
“I think any symbol that can help someone with a hidden disability have a better experience through their airports is a good thing,” he said. “As we know, airports and your travel journey are a series of interconnected stops, an ecosystem, and if it’s at more airports, your travel experience can feel more consistent from place to place.”
Shelley Petit, chair of the New Brunswick Coalition of People with Disabilities, says this launch is an important step forward for the Maritimes and she has been advocating for something similar for several years.
“35.3 percent of New Brunswickers 15 and over, based on the latest census, have a disability and out of that, 70 percent of those are invisible, meaning you can’t see it, but it’s not’ n make the disability less real for us,” he said.
She hopes that this visual initiative means that people with invisible disabilities — such as autism, dementia, MS, hearing loss, and many others — will not have to constantly explain their situation.
“The trauma it takes away, that’s what it is, there’s no more re-trauma over and over again because we feel like we have to defend, non-stop, our disability and we shouldn’t have to for us to do that,” he said. He said.
Years ago she traveled from Saint John to Fort McMurray with her two children – one of whom lives with autism – and her sister.
She says the sunflower lanyard program would have made a huge difference to her family.
“There were basic things that were so hard to do and there were people who got upset because she would repeat things on the plane, but that’s who she is,” she said. “There’s nothing she can do about that and something like that would have had a little more help from the stewardess.”
While Petit calls this a step forward, she says that it will only be effective and have a positive impact if staff receive the right training and everyone is on the same page.
She says this could look like working with people and asking them directly how they need help and making sure everyone uses the same appropriate language.
“Things like, don’t tell someone, because we’ll hear this, ‘but you don’t look disabled.’ […] My answer now is what does a person with a disability look like and then we get a lot of stuttering. You can’t make assumptions,” he said.
Passengers looking for lanyards for their next journey can either pick one up at the volunteer desk directly across from security or they can call ahead and ask for one from reception staff.
