You saw it here first

If this logo seems familiar, it's because it was designed by Sara Hendren, who generously furnished an early version that we use on our website.  We blogged about it before.  Personally. I like the orange version.  

Sara, a Harvard graduate student, has a fascinating blog at ablersite.org, where she writes about "art, adaptive technologies and prosthetics".  Sara has long advocated for a more positive version of the wheelchair logo.

With friends from a small college in Massachusetts, Sara has now achieved a breakthrough.  The UN is interested, and the City of New York plans to use the symbol widely.  This is all reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This would be a welcome change in Halifax, where the depressingly inanimate wheelchair symbol is ubiquitous.  It reflects such a patronizing view of disability - dependent and static - while the truth is that people with disabilities value independence as much as anyone.