Defence Team National AccessAbility Week 2024: co-Champions Message

May 27, 2024 - Defence Stories

Mark your calendars, National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) is taking place from May 26 to June 1, 2024!

Celebrated annually, NAAW is an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of persons with disabilities, highlight the work underway to remove barriers, and reflect on ongoing efforts to become a better, more accessible, and more inclusive workplace.

To kick off the start of NAAW, we invite you to tune into a virtual Government of Canda wide event on Monday, May 27 from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm (ET) hosted by the Office of Public Service Accessibility and the Canada School of Public Service on the theme: Brave Conversations and Bold Actions When Building Accessible and Inclusive Workplaces.

The event celebrates the leadership and contributions of individuals with disabilities and organizations advancing accessibility within the federal public service. Panelists will showcase progress and offer practical steps for everyone to promote accessibility and disability inclusion, and participants will leave with a better understanding of how they can support accessibility and disability inclusion in the workplace.

This bilingual event for NAAW 2024 is open to all employees of the public service. Interpretation in both official languages, American Sign Language and langue des signes québécoise interpretation will be provided as well as Communication access real-time translation (CART) services.

As the Defence Team co-Champions for Persons with Disabilities, we are aware that there remain attitudinal barriers with respect to accessibility and people with disabilities. In support of removing these barriers and evolving our culture, we encourage you to find opportunities throughout the week to engage in brave conversations with your teams and colleagues. Discuss how we, as individuals and as a collective, can continue to remove barriers for persons with disabilities and cultivate a psychologically safer and healthier workplace for all members of the Defence Team. 

Be sure to check out the Defence Team NAAW 2024 Calendar (accessible with a D365 account) to find more planned events for the week, how you and your team can get involved in daily challenges to raise accessibility awareness, and learn about the lived experiences of persons with disabilities.

Continue the conversation on social media throughout NAAW (and beyond) using the hashtags #NAAW2024 and #AccessibleGC.

For questions or concerns related to accessibility for the Defence Team or to provide feedback on an accessibility barrier, contact the Defence Team Accessibility Office.