Cindy Hollis Receives Award from VisionServe Alliance
Recently, ACB Membership Services Coordinator Cindy Hollis, received the Roxann Mayros Organizational Champion Award from VisionServe Alliance for her work with the ACB Community. This award was established to honor senior leadership members of member-driven organizations that have demonstrated extraordinary service to the field. View Cindy’s acceptance of the award and her nomination from ACB President Dan Spoone by visiting: https://youtu.be/JESsg4uw5Go. To learn more about the progress and growth that has taken place within our community this year, visit: https://acbvoices.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/acb-community-acknowledged-in-national-award/.
Take the ACB Consumer Survey and Be Entered Into a Drawing for an Amazon Gift Card
ACB has put together a brief survey to gain a better understanding of those throughout our network. Help us out by taking time to complete the survey. Your responses will help guide our advocacy and program services. You can also enter a drawing at the end to win an Amazon gift card. Take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ACBConsumerSurvey2020
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
In honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, ACB Staff Member Claire Stanley spoke with two ACB members, Kim Charlson and Mitch Pomerantz. Both have held, or currently hold, leadership positions in the World Blind Union. To celebrate the lives of disabled persons from around the globe, viewers will learn more about what WBU does. Access the video by visiting: https://youtu.be/qv_2TakisOc.
ACB Scholarship Applications
The American Council of the Blind (ACB), in partnership with the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) is now accepting applications for educational scholarships for the 2021-2022 academic school year. These scholarships can be used to help with post-secondary education financial needs such as tuition, fees, room and board and other additional costs associated with adaptive technology. Scholarships range from $2,000 to $7500, and To be eligible, students must be legally blind, maintain a 3.0GPA, and be a full-time student or working 32 hours a week or more and taking substantial course work. The deadline for submitting applications for the 2021-2022 school year is Monday, February 15, 2021 11:59pm (CST). All interested candidates must register for an ACB account prior to submitting a scholarship application online. Once you have created an account with ACB, please login and then you can access the scholarship application from the link at the top of the site. Visit https://members.acb.org/ to create an account or log in.
Indiana Voting Lawsuit
In a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal district court in the Southern District of Indiana, individual plaintiffs, joined by the Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services Commission and American Council of the Blind of Indiana, assert that the Indiana Election Commission and the Secretary of State are discriminating against voters who are blind or have low vision by not offering the necessary accommodations that these voters need to vote privately and independently when using the absentee vote-by-mail program. Read the press release by visiting: https://acb.org/IN-accessible-voting-lawsuit.
iOS Engineers Detail Apple’s Approach to Improving Accessibility with iOS 14
Apple just gave an overhaul to its accessibility landing page to better highlight the native features in macOS and iOS that allow user’s devices to “work the way you do” and encourage everyone to “make something wonderful.” Now a new interview with Apple’s accessibility and AI/ML engineers goes into more detail on the company’s approach to improving accessibility with iOS 14. Read the article by visiting: https://tinyurl.com/y46ak6zo.