September has arrived and it’s Labour Day with Laura Bain. Laura is wrapping up school and starting a new job and she’s back on Outlook to tell us all about travel, transitions, and changes she’s made since she was last on air with us. Speaking of schooling, Laura has been on an academic journey in psychology and social work, having just completed a Masters in Social Work, taking her own time to get here and we’re talking making education work for people with all sorts of needs, part-time as Bain did it: “being able to engage more fully with the material,” with ablest views on course load and full-time vs part time program participation in a rigid system. We’re asking for accommodations; there’s no shame in this. Laura tells us about how she navigated through her schooling and then through unfamiliar cities as a traveler. We talk about the differences between travel with others, a sighted partner for example, vs independent travel, interdependence in this or group trips, tackling new surroundings solo with Bain’s trips to New York for the No Barriers Summit. Or whether it’s in France or England most recently: things like being less than bilingual in a non English speaking country, using technology to get around, and the total mental drain it can take to access all our sensory skills when traveling alone. Things like needing time to rest in the hotel and moving away from such a frantic tourist experience as most take on and for which we’re encouraged to join in on in this fast paced world. So whether it’s in schooling or in travel, doing things on our own schedule is going against the grain of go go go. We hear about Laura’s experience doing London half on her own and then half with accessible tour group Seeable Holidays where the guides are trained but sighted people join the group and are there to assist those who are blind. Brother co-host Brian learned about local greeter organisations, specifically London Greeters and the guide Laura had who knew Brian and had been impacted by Brian’s earlier advocating for himself, which prompted this local guide to access some blindness awareness training. It’s a small world after all as the song goes. So with the summer coming to an end, Laura is back at it and telling us about the jobs she’s had recently which include working once more for Accessible Media Inc. and then working locally for her municipal government, Halifax Regional Municipality Office of Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator Accessibility Community Outreach and Research, a long title for a seemingly sweet job with government but she shares a bit about being on a probational basis and finding it difficult, though in the diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) spaces, she wasn’t getting that direct community engagement she prefers to have. So we finish off, with a new school year ahead for many and for Laura Bain it means taking on a new role at the CNIB as a program coordinator, dealing directly with the community by, for example, coordinating a camp for the community of kids and families. She took the leap from government job, not quite the right fit for her at this time, and what she’s doing on contract until next March and we hope to have her back with us to discuss more on where she’s headed next. We at Outlook appreciate our friends, like Laura Bain, joining us in community as it truly is a small world after all and we look forward to getting Bain’s own tour of Halifax, her city, very soon with the privilege of access to travel making us better, more well rounded people. The No Barriers Summit website says: WHAT’S WITHIN YOU IS STRONGER THAN WHAT’S IN YOUR Way - and that’s what we three have in common as we navigate life with a disability: https://nobarriersusa.org