City of WL Annual Accessibility Award of Merit

Courtesy of the City of Williams Lake:

The Williams Lake Accessibility Advisory Committee would like to encourage community members to nominate individuals, organizations and businesses that have made a significant contribution to improve accessibility within the City of Williams Lake for the prestigious Annual Accessibility Award of Merit.

The City of Williams Lake believes that public awareness about physical and attitudinal barriers will help improve the quality of life for all disabled persons, giving them the opportunity to participate in all aspects of community life.

This has been written into the City’s Official Community Plan.

The Williams Lake Accessibility Advisory Committee’s Mission is to remove physical and social barriers which impede the full participation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of community life.

Eligibility Criteria and Nomination Criteria:

· Businesses nominated must be located within the City of Williams Lake boundaries.

· Individuals can live outside the boundaries, but must provide a service to the citizens of Williams Lake.

· Individuals, Organizations and Businesses are eligible for nominations.

· A call for Accessibility Award of Merit nominations will be initiated in January with a closing date of March 31, 2014.

· The nominee has demonstrated a commitment to increase accessibility above and beyond what is required by law or regulation.

· The nominee has improved accessibility for persons with disabilities and/or special needs.

· The business, individual or group being nominated must have provided a service for the people of Williams Lake.

· The nominator must provide strong evidence in support of the nominee’s contribution and/or commitment. Letters of support and photographs will enhance the nomination.

· Nominators can submit more than one nomination and they cannot nominate themselves.

· Improvements or contributions should have occurred in the past two years.

A nomination form can be accessed here, completed and forwarded to the Williams Lake Accessibility Advisory Committee:

Williams Lake Accessibility Advisory Committee
c/o Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex
525 Proctor Street,Williams Lake, BC V2G 4J1
Email: acail@williamslake.ca
Fax:250.398.7884

Examples that meet nomination criteria:

· Accessibility of built environment – parking, indoor and outdoor, lack of physical barriers,accessible playgrounds, walkways, paths, ramps, wheelchair accessible washrooms, sufficient hand rails, wheelchair height counters, snow removal,etc.

· Housing Initiatives– new low cost housing that accommodates people with disabilities or visitable housing

· Service, Staffing and Employment opportunities

· Transportation

· Health and Wellness

· Inclusion of People with Disabilities

· Innovative New Idea or Activity or Product

Evaluation Criteria:

· A subcommittee which consists of three members of the Accessibility Advisory Committee and a CWL staff member who has not submitted one of the current nominations will be chosen at the first Accessibility Committee meeting in March each year.

· Once the Award of Merit nominations close one of the members of the sub-committee will schedule visits to the businesses, organizations or meet with individual nominees.

· The subcommittee will visit the nominees together, discuss features and each member will complete a score sheet with numerical and anecdotal notes on each nominee.

· The four members will meet following the visits to discuss their score sheets and tally the numbers. The tally of all scores sheets will determine the Award of Merit winner. This data will be taken by the staff rep to the Accessibility Advisory Committee for final endorsement.

Recognition Process:

· Whenever possible the Accessibility Award of Merit will be presented by the Mayor of the City of Williams Lake at a City Council meeting during the month of June.

To learn more about Accessibility in Williams Lake, please click here