The City of Pointe-Claire is growing increasingly aware of its diversity - inching closer towards becoming a fully inclusive disability and special-needs-friendly City! 

Our city has incorporated ongoing inclusion and accommodation goals and objectives through a yearly Action Plan designed to meet the needs of Pointe-Claire residents with disabilities - ranging from City employee training, the recent obtention of Assistive Listening Devices (ALD) technology and Closed-Captioning in city council meetings to the varied park equipment structures in City Parks and Leisure Programming activities as well as working together alongside community organizations from Montreal and the West-Island by providing referral and support to the Pointe-Claire special-needs and disabled resident community. 

In the next following issues we will be exploring in depth and discussing in detail through a parts series - the statistics on the variety of residents with disabilities in our city, how funds are allocated towards these accommodations and supports, the work our city is doing towards establishing itself as a proactive and inclusive city and how all of us as residents could also help empower and rally together in support of our fellow resident community, and much more. 

Look out for the first part of our interesting series - starting in February! 

Maria Benavides is a mother of 2, living with deafness since early childhood. A passionate writer, volunteer and disability-rights activist and advocate, she lives in Pointe-Claire where she has resided for 26 years, juggling her time educating and raising her youngest.