Podcasts By Donna Jodhan

Donna J. Jodhan
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Podcasts By Donna Jodhan feature a variety of audio podcasts that focus on the future of children, particularly those with disabilities. As a blind advocate and entrepreneur, Donna shares her insights, life experiences, and advocacy efforts, aiming to inspire and inform her listeners. Her podcasts cover issues such as accessibility, inclusivity, and breaking down barriers in technology and everyday life, encouraging collective efforts to create a better and more equitable future for all children.

  1. 5d ago

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #117: Interview with Joel Snyder, President, Audio Description Associates, LLC

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #117: Interview with Joel Snyder, President, Audio Description Associates, LLC https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-10-14-2026/ In this illuminating episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes Joel Snyder, who takes listeners back to his years as a volunteer reader at the Metropolitan Washington Ear and explains how audio description began. Joel credits Dr. Margaret Pfanstiehl, the blind founder of the Washington Ear, and Chet Avery, a blind man at the Department of Education, with the idea that grew into the first professionally described theater production, Major Barbara at Arena Stage in the summer of 1981, and he credits Gregory Frazier, whose San Francisco master's thesis he says was the first published work on the subject. He traces description from live theater to television with WGBH, then to DVDs, movie theaters and streaming services, and points listeners to the American Council of the Blind's Audio Description Project at https://adp.acb.org. Donna and Joel also talk about how his training as an actor shapes his teaching, with observation as the first of his four fundamentals of audio description, and why he says the best compliment a describer can get is "I forgot you were there." Joel looks back on his 20 years at the National Endowment for the Arts and his work describing Sesame Street at the National Captioning Institute, and he shares the stories of a blind mother following Sesame Street with her children and a young blind girl who asked Fred Rogers to say aloud when he fed his fish. Looking ahead, he predicts description built into productions from the start and delivered through smartphone apps, and he mentions his book, The Visual Made Verbal, which he says is now in print in seven languages. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: [upbeat digital music] Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was tremendously humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal, and that is to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience, and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a quick spotlight on today's guest, a change maker whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am pleased and I am tremendously privileged to welcome Joel Snyder to our Remarkable World Commentary podcast for today. Welcome, Joel. Joel Snyder: Thank you, Donna. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right. So let's get right into things then. Joel, long before anyone called this a profession, you were a volunteer reader at the Metropolitan Washington Ear reading the Sunday Washington Post aloud. Joel Snyder: [laughs] That's right, for about 10 years. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, and somewhere in there you started describing the comics the way Mayor La Guardia once did on the radio. I want you to take me back to that studio. What made you start describing the pictures instead of just reading the words? Joel Snyder: [laughs] Well, in the '70s, indeed I was a volunteer for the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a radio reading service. And volunteers took turns reading different newspapers and magazine articles and short stories and that sort of thing for this radio reading service on a frequency that was accessible via a particular receiver that people who are blind primarily used. And it was great fun, a great learning experience for me as a young voice talent and actor and such. Joel Snyder: And it really occurred to all of us as we're reading newspapers, newspapers are chock-full of photographs and graphic advertisements and such, and if we're gonna make the newspaper accessible, we can't just read the text, just like Mayor La Guardia did in the '40s. He was reading the comics to the people of New York City. Couldn't just read the text. You gotta describe the images. Joel Snyder: And all of us as volunteers there were not struggling with it really, but we realized that that's certainly something we needed to do. But there was no kind of best practices or guidelines of standards for doing description. We just did it. People have been describing things since prehistoric times. Joel Snyder: But it was a little bit later, in about 1980, when the woman who founded the Washington Ear, its director, Dr. Margaret Pfanstiehl, a blind woman, she was on a committee at Arena Stage, the professional repertory theater in Washington, DC. A committee to advise them on accessibility, which in 1980, that wasn't done very often. But they had convened the committee partly on the occasion of having installed an assisted listening system. So yeah, also very new. They're ubiquitous now, but this was their installed, to help people who had hearing loss hear what's going on. Joel Snyder: Well, Margaret was on that committee, a blind woman, along with another gentleman from the Department of Education, Chet Avery, a blind man, and both of them thought this system was wonderful, but they also both wondered, "Well, gee, what do you have for us? We're blind. We don't have hearing." Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Joel Snyder: So they theorized as they learned about the system, it's just a microphone on a stage and that connects to some sort of transmitter, and the sound is received by people wearing headsets in the audience. You can crank up the volume. Joel Snyder: So they wondered if, well, if it's just a microphone on stage, maybe you could have two channels and the second channel could be used by a person with a second microphone. Why couldn't that happen? Maybe somebody off stage, maybe using the pauses in between bits and pieces of dialogue or critical sound elements, just let us know what's going on. What action in particular. But of course, there might be description of facial expressions, the settings, costumes and such as time allows. Joel Snyder: And at the stage, they thought, "Well, gee, we've never heard of that before." And Margaret and Chet both felt like, "Well, yeah, we haven't heard it before either. We just made it up." But could it work possibly? And so Arena Stage agreed and said, "Well, Margaret, you've got a radio station. Maybe you can get some folks together and figure out how we would do this." Joel Snyder: And Margaret grabbed me, I was already an English teacher and professional actor and voice talent, and a couple of others, and we began to hammer this out. What would we even call it? Well, it's an aural experience. Audio, audio description. That's what we'll do. Joel Snyder: And we worked on it for about a year, and in the summer of 1981, the very first professional theater presentation with audio description debuted. Major Barbara, the play by Shaw, at Arena Stage with audio description. And I should add quickly, though, that the idea of doing this as a service accompanying a dramatic production or a film or video occurred to a fellow in San Francisco, to Gregory Frazier, in the mid-1970s. He did a master's thesis on this topic. Joel Snyder: He had a good friend who was blind, and I think he was a little tired of always having to describe movies to his friend. And he thought, "This should just be something available." He wrote a master's thesis called An All Audio Adaptation of the Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a great film with Cicely Tyson. And so that was his master's thesis back in, I think it was '78, '77. Joel Snyder: And in mid-'80s, he went on to develop a service just like we had in Washington, but this is in San Francisco, a service called AudioVision doing description for live performance. And both of the services are still around and doing description at different kinds of performing arts events, especially dance, theater, opera. And then it went on from there. Joel Snyder: 1985, we collaborated with WGBH in Boston to actually start doing this for television. We did a pilot for them, which was very successful. I actually wrote and voiced three of

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #117: Interview with Joel Snyder, President, Audio Description Associates, LLC

  2. 6d ago

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #116: Interview with Jerry Nicholson, Co-Founder, Accessible Data

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #116: Interview with Jerry Nicholson, Co-Founder, Accessible Data https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-10-13-2026/ In this inspiring episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes Jerry Nicholson, co-founder of Accessible Data, from the UK. Jerry traces his path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh and qualifying as a chartered accountant to moving to Bangladesh with his wife, Fiona, after the two of them read Muhammad Yunus's Banker to the Poor. There they set up Tindercapital to bring early stage venture capital to businesses that could scale, invested in the eco-friendly manufacturer Oasis Coffins, and ran Open Accelerator for rural entrepreneurs. Jerry speaks openly about how hard that first investment was, including a breakdown just before COVID that he says he has fully recovered from. Jerry then explains how the platform he and his business partner, Christophe Geiser, built under the name Preignition became an accessible survey tool after the International Disability Alliance found that many of its members could not fill in its global survey and put out an open call. Jerry describes the barriers people face with online forms, from keyboard navigation to sign language and Easy Read needs, and why forms that shut disabled people out leave them unheard and leave organizations with biased data. Donna presses the point that organizations too often collect lived experience for free, Jerry says a paid panel of disabled respondents could be a future product, and Donna closes by inviting him to write an article for https://barrierfreecanada.org. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and amongst other things, stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster, who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Everything I do circles one goal, and that is to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a quick spotlight on today's guest, a change maker whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am pleased and privileged to welcome Jerry Nicholson all the way across the pond in the UK. Hello, Jerry, and welcome to my podcast. Jerry Nicholson: Hi, Donna, and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you today. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So what's the weather like in the UK at the present time? Jerry Nicholson: Well, the weather in the UK constantly changes, so— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Jerry Nicholson: It was rainy this morning, but it's now beautiful outside. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Good. Jerry Nicholson: Big blue skies with a few fluffy white clouds. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, nice. Nice. So Jerry, welcome to the Remarkable World Commentary. I always like to begin at the very beginning. So tell us about your early path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh to qualifying as a chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Back then, what did you imagine that your life's work would be? Jerry Nicholson: Oh, that's a good question, Donna. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Yeah, I think I left university with just, I suppose, a desire to do something meaningful with my work. So more than just make money and live comfortably. But to actually do something that had purpose at the center of it. But I've also always been quite interested in business and making things commercial. So I suppose that's what drove me to study accountancy. Not as an end in itself, but just feeling that that would be a useful thing to learn a bit about finance and how businesses worked, to see what would then open up at the end of that. So in many, many respects, my time training as an accountant was a bit like a continuation of my education. So I would say that I really started pursuing my work journey when I was 30. So after qualifying as a chartered accountant and spending times with PwC and Ernst & Young— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [instrumental music] Now, at around 2010, you and your wife, Fiona, moved from the United Kingdom to Dhaka, Bangladesh. A move in, I understand, was sparked by... Sorry, it was sparked by reading Muhammad Yunus on microfinance. What drew you there, and what did those users teach you about who gets included and who gets left out when important decisions are made? Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A loaded question, so I— Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, no, it's a good question. Yeah, so I suppose I first went to Bangladesh with Fiona shortly after we got married, and I had qualified as a chartered accountant. And a bit like I was saying previously, Donna, I'd always gone into accountancy as a means to an end. So we're really just asking those questions, "Well, what are we gonna do with our lives?" And particularly, "How's our work gonna fit into that?" So in 2000 and... I think it was probably 2004, 2005, Fi and I, we spent a year traveling, and we spent a bit of time in a country called Tajikistan in Central Asia. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Jerry Nicholson: And then we did a big trip starting in Cambodia and working— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh. Jerry Nicholson: Our way over land back to the UK. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ooh. Jerry Nicholson: And we were meeting up with lots of different people who were doing interesting things and using business and finance to create opportunities. And as part of that trip, we passed through Bangladesh. We'd both read Muhammad Yunus's book, Banker to the Poor, and had read about microfinance and this idea of financial institutions lending people with very limited means really quite small amounts of money, so maybe $50 or $100, which would enable them to— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Jerry Nicholson: Maybe buy a sewing machine or buy a cow, some sort of small income-generating asset, and then that would then provide some additional revenue for the family. And this was an idea that seemed quite interesting to us. So we actually spent about three weeks in Bangladesh and had the pleasure of meeting Professor Muhammad Yunus, who is incredible, a incredibly humble man and a great leader. And that was a wonderful time. But as part of that trip, one of the things we thought was, well, microfinance has a role. It also has its critics, which I agree with some of the criticism of the microfinance model, but I think it definitely has a part to play. But Fi and I then started thinking, well, really microfinance is very widely provided, particularly in a country like Bangladesh, so it doesn't need more microfinance. But what Bangladesh and I think many countries like it do need are venture capital or risk capital— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Jerry Nicholson: To help businesses which have the potential to scale. So not sort of microfinance to finance a cottage industry, but, yeah, venture capital to really grow enterprises. So that's really what Fi and I then started thinking about. And ultimately, we went back to Bangladesh about four years later, four or five years later in 2010, and we set up an organization called Tindercapital to try and get— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh. Jerry Nicholson: That type of venture capital going to those early stage scalable businesses. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The name Tindercapital, I'm just curious, how did the name come about? What went into giving this name to your venture? Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, we actually named it... I mean, there's now the very famous dating app Tinder, but we actually named Tindercapital before Tinder came about, or certainly we didn't know about it. So the idea is this, tinder being the small bits of wood or material that you would— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Jerry Nicholson: Start a fire with, which would then lead to a much bigger fire. So it's the idea of providing that sort of quite strategic early stage c

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #116: Interview with Jerry Nicholson, Co-Founder, Accessible Data

  3. Oct 2

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #115: Ask Advocate Donna

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #115: Ask Advocate Donna https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-10-02-2026/ In this practical episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA presents her October Ask Advocate Donna, opening with one of her favorite quotes, by an unknown author: speak in such a way that others love to listen to you, and listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. Her word game sets complacent against active, arguing that complacency leaves little room for advocacy while being active makes room for it, and then turns to in kind and unkind, wondering whether being cruel to be kind applies to the pair. Donna then shares three listener stories, asking of each what advocacy is, who gets involved, why it is necessary, how and when. A mother, Emily, told a desk agent that her son Emil was vision impaired to get a discounted pass, and Emil's friends spoke up; Donna calls this counter-advocacy and says using a disability to gain an advantage is not right. Rico was fined after his service dog left hair in an Uber; Donna says Uber must accept service dogs and should be called out, with Rico going from the company to a lawyer and social media. Finally, a medical assistant at a lab refused to help a vision-impaired patient undress and asked the patient's friend to do it; Donna says that was very wrong and advises reporting it to the doctor and then the medical association. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello there. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your Ask An Advocate host. Second episode for the month of October. Thank you everyone for joining me today, and thank you for responding to my call for your thoughts, your words, your comments, your feedback. Okay? So continue writing to me at donnajodhan@gmail.com, okay? donnajodhan@gmail.com and keep on listening. You never know what you might come across in any of my podcasts and we go from there. All right, so let me start off today with one of my favorite quotes. And here goes: Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you, and listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. Unfortunately, this author is unknown. Now let's go to my word game, one of my favorite segments of my podcast. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay? Many times advocates have to choose between being complacent or being active. I will tell you that being complacent in my books doesn't happen very often. The minute that one is complacent, it means that they choose to ignore. They choose to not care. They choose simply to sit there and take it all in. Whereas on the flip side of the coin, you have active. So complacent versus active. Active is when you decide to do something about something. So complacent versus active. There are complacent advocates who really believe that being complacent is a way or a means of support. I don't fully agree. If you're complacent, I don't think there's much room for you to become involved in advocacy. Whereas if you become active, there is room for you. So let's think about it, complacent versus active. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right. Here's the other two terms I'd like you to think of for today. In kind or unkind. Do you do something to be kind? As they say, it's in kind that you are performing some action or doing something. Or unkind means that, you know, it's being viewed that you're not being kind, you're being unkind. I wonder if the thought of being cruel to be kind could be applied to these two terms. You're being cruel to be kind when it is unkind. Is that so? What do you think? Or in kind is if you're doing it because you honestly believe that it is a kind gesture. Send me your thoughts to donnajodhan@gmail.com. Now we're going to move into the three stories of the month that our team has chosen for me to share with you, and here's the first story. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A parent says that her son, little Timmy, is vision impaired. Why is she saying this? Emily told the agents at the desk that her little boy, not Timmy, Emil, was vision impaired. Emily wrote this story and sent it to us, okay? And she did so because she wanted to get a special rate for her little boy, Emil. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Emil's friends noticed what was going on. They noticed that Emily was telling the customer agent at the desk that little Emil was vision impaired. They took action. And this is a kind of a unique story in that Emil was not vision impaired, but the mother wanted to take advantage of something here by telling the customer agent that Emil was vision impaired. The friends knew differently, and the friends stepped up to the plate and said, "No, Emil is not vision impaired." What would you have advised the customer agent to do? Would you, in this instance, to avoid any sort of argument or disturbance, simply gone along with Emily's claim that little Emil was vision impaired and just simply issued a pass or a discounted pass to Emil? Or would you, like Emil's friends, stepped up to the plate and said, "No, this is not right." Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You're using what I call counter-advocacy here. You're using a so-called disability to gain an advantage. Is this right? I don't know what you think, but in my books, it is not right. It is not right to say something that is not true, and it is not right to use a disability to try and gain an advantage. What is your suggestion? What are your thoughts? Okay. So here is what I would like you to think about. Are you on the side of the friends, or are you on the side of Emily, or what would you advise the customer agent to do? Tough decision, eh? So what is advocacy all about? What is advocacy all about here? Advocacy, in my books, in this instance, is advocating for the right thing, the honorable thing. And who gets involved with advocacy in this instance? Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It is the friends who gets involved in advocacy because little Emil may be too embarrassed to do something, but his friends can. Why is it necessary here? Because it's a matter of stopping someone who has no conscience from trying to gain an advantage by saying that her son has a disability, and it is not so. How do you get involved in advocacy? You do so by exactly doing what the friends did. And when? When you see something that needs to be corrected. Let's move on to the second story. All right. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Customer was penalized for having a service dog in an Uber cab. This is gaining a lot of attention, and Uber seems to not understand that the law or the regulations or the legislation says that they must accept service dogs. There is no other way, and this is a growing concern amongst our community here, for those with guide dogs. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, Rico had notified the Uber company that he had a service dog when he called them for a ride. Okay? At first, the driver said that the dog could go into the trunk. Okay? The driver said that the dog could sit with Rico in the backseat. Rico was then fined for his dog making a mess with its hairs or leaving its hairs on the seat or on the floor of the cab. What would be your advice to Rico? I know what mine would be. If I am very sure, and I think it is so, that legally Uber has to take a passenger with a service dog, then I would go much further. I will not take this because if this is what the law is, it is as it is, and Uber needs to be called out. There are too many people reporting on Facebook and even writing to me by telling me that this is the case. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So let's move on here. Okay? All right. What is advocacy all about? Advocacy here is when someone knows that the law says that the cab company must accept a passenger with a service dog. And the passenger has advised this, the Uber company. This is what advocacy is all about, fighting for your rights. Okay? Who gets involved in advocacy here? Well, it's Rico to start with, and then Rico's friends, and he does this through social media and by word of mouth. Why is it necessary? Because the Uber company is not adhering to what the law says. How do you get involved in advocacy? Rico starts the ball rolling. Rico goes to the Uber company to report what is going on. The Uber company does not do anything about it. Then Rico can go to or seek the services of a lawyer and post his experiences to social media. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When do you get involved in advocacy? As I said above, when something is not right, when a company is not adhering to the law, and this appears to be the case here with Uber. Right. Let's move on now to the next story. Okay? Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You have someone who wrote to us saying that a medical assistant at a lab refused to help a patient with a vision impairment. In a lab, we had a medical assistant who refused to help a patient with a vision impairment. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The assistant wanted the patient's friend to help her get undressed. No, no, no. For me, it is a no, no, no. Okay? The friend told the assistant that it was their duty to help the patient. Okay? And the patient reiterated this. What's wrong with this situation here? For the most part, we don't get undresse

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #115: Ask Advocate Donna

  4. Oct 1

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #114: Left Out or Left Behind

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #114: Left Out or Left Behind https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-10-01-2026/ In this pointed episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA opens October with a question she calls controversial: when barriers shut people with disabilities out, are they being left out or left behind? She points to online forms that banks, educational institutions and certification bodies still fail to make accessible, calling out the Apex organization for inaccessible sign-up forms, InnoSearch for trying and failing, and Pearson VUE for an online certification exam she says was not accessible in any way. She recounts trying to renew her business registration through ServiceOntario, where the online form was inaccessible and the first agent told her to find someone to help, until a third agent resolved it. She also raises elevators in medical buildings with no braille labels or speech, office buildings designed without accessible entrances, and the lack, as far as she knows, of a federal minister assigned to accessibility in Mark Carney's government, adding that she is a Mark Carney fan and would apologize if a minister has been named. Donna's story of the month comes from a listener with multiple disabilities who used her mental stretch to cope with a lack of compassion from management and coworkers. She walks through the technique: sit or lie somewhere quiet, choose one of the senses, such as the smell of lavender, and let it send messages from the brain through the whole body, from the toes up to the head. She closes by announcing that Your Mental Stretch with Donna will be refreshed in January with a new way of doing mental stretches and an experienced co-host who writes songs and uses music therapy. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello there. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, and welcome to my first Remarkable World Commentary podcast for October. Goodness, October is here, and October is steaming along. And I wanna thank all those who have taken the time to either write to me at donnajodhan@gmail.com. That is D-O-N-N-A-J-O-D-H-A-N, my first and last name, @gmail.com, or who have taken the time to respond to my podcast by listening to it, by reading the show notes. Thank you, everybody. So it is the first week in October, and for my topic, I have chosen a very controversial one, or I should say it's a question. It is all about left out or left behind. Which is it? And there are so many instances that I could refer to that talks about left out or left behind, and I want to give you some examples of what I mean, okay? Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When online forms are not accessible to persons with disabilities, is this reason to say that we are being left out or that we are being left behind? We have too many online forms that are not accessible. From the banks in the banking industry, and one of the main culprits are those educational institutions and those universities. Universities may be a bit better in this instance, but the institutions and organizations that are offering courses and certifications to those persons with a disability, and for me as a person who is vision impaired, these forms are not accessible. So it means that we cannot take certifications. We cannot take advantage of banking services. We cannot take advantage of special offers from stores and other types of organizations who offer these incentives. I'm going to call out the Apex persons or organization. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When I first got to know them, they were with Novacoast. Now they're with somebody else, but I'm still gonna call them out because their online forms for signing up and for doing other activities with them were totally inaccessible, and they offered little to no help as to how to do it. So I had to pay somebody to do it. In the case of another company called InnoSearch, they tried. They really tried, but they failed. And in the case of the Pearson VUE organization, here is another well-known international organization/agency/whatever you want to call them, did not make the online exams or online certification exam that I took accessible in any way and did not seem interested in wanting to do it in any way. So are we being left out or left behind? I'll let you be the judge, okay? Another example is ServiceOntario. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So quite a few months ago, I decided that I needed to renew my business registration. Guess what? Couldn't do it because the online form was totally, totally inaccessible. There were no workarounds such as a face-to-face engagement with the ServiceOntario office. And the first agent that I dealt with had the nerve to tell me, "Find someone to help you." Find someone to help you. Is that her response to being left out or left behind, and did she care? No, she didn't care. The second agent was a little bit more responsive. And the third agent, I have to tell you, was absolutely magnificent. She did everything to help me out, and this meant that despite the fact that I was left out or left behind, there was a resolution, okay? Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, what about those elevators at medical buildings? There are too many of them that do not have braille labels on their buttons. The elevator does not speak as it goes from floor to floor. Have we been left out, or have we been left behind, or have we been considered in any sort of way, especially so in a medical building? And there are other examples of other types of buildings, but I'm zooming in on the medical buildings for now. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Or when an office building is being designed with no accessible entrances or exits, what does that tell you? Are we being left out? Are we being left behind as persons with disabilities, or even other types of groups? You have seniors, or what about moms with strollers? Are we being left out or are we being left behind? I want you to tell me, okay? Or there is still no specific minister that has been assigned by the Canadian government to deal with issues pertaining to accessibility. What does this really mean? For I will tell you, I am a Mark Carney fan, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna call out his government for still not having assigned a designated minister to deal with accessibility issues. Left out or left behind? Or if he has assigned a minister, I'd like someone to tell me, and I would apologize. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I'm not afraid to do that. Left out or left behind? What is it? Please write to me at donnajodhan, D-O-N-N-A-J-O-D-H-A-N, @gmail.com and let me know your thoughts, okay? All right. Here's my story of the month, okay? For someone who used Our Mental Stretch to deal with the situation of no compassion in the workplace. This person had multiple disabilities. They were not just vision impaired, but they were also hard of hearing. And unfortunately, management and several fellow employees did not show any compassion in the workplace. So this person asked me not to give their name. I'd love to, but they told me or asked me not to. Told me that they came across Our Mental Stretch with Donna podcast and decided to say, you know, why not? Let's use it. Let's see what happens. So what they did is they used the mental stretch. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And what is the mental stretch all about? It is using the different senses to generate responses when the body is called upon, and it helps to refresh, regurgitate, rejuvenate, renew. So it works like this. So if, for example, you have something you want to deal with, you can either sit in your chair, or lie in bed, or sit anywhere that is quiet. Next, you choose a sense. Probably let's go with the sense of smell for this one. You could use a sense of smell, sense of touch, sense of taste, sense of sight, sense of hearing, okay? So we're gonna use a sense of smell. They concentrate on a favorite smell, okay? So let's say smell of lavender. I'm choosing one of my favorite smells. They start inhaling a small, not container. What's the word that I'm looking for? Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Vial of lavender, okay? Or they pretend that they are smelling lavender. What this does, it starts to send different messages to different parts of the body, and soon you find yourself really into it, really stretching the mental capacity. So it starts with the body getting involved, okay? You start with your toes, then your feet, your ankles, your legs, your knees, your thighs, your tummy, your back, way up to the head and the brain. And the brain soon starts telling these various parts of the body, "Hey, wake up. You have work to do." All right? So you can feel the entire experience starting with toes and going up. All right? Or you can start with the brain. Let's start with the brain. The brain is always the place where you start. You start there, and your sense of smell starts to stimulate the brain. And soon the brain is sending messages all throughout your body. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: This is what my mental stretch is all about. And I have an announcement to make in that coming in January, we are going to refresh Your Mental Stretch with Donna, and we're going to have a brand-new way o

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #114: Left Out or Left Behind

  5. Sep 21

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #113: Interview with Shaun Kelly, Pottery Instructor, SoKo Pottery Studio

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #113: Interview with Shaun Kelly, Pottery Instructor, SoKo Pottery Studio https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-21-2026/ In this heartfelt episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA welcomes her pottery instructor, Shaun Kelly, of SoKo Pottery Studio, who shares how clay first came into his life through his mother, and how a career as a programmer and IT project manager that kept him always on call, and at 350 pounds, gave way on his doctor's advice to a healthier life in pottery. He credits his first teacher, Pauline Harman, for the projects-and-templates approach he still uses with beginners, and his mentor, Sandi Dunkelman, for teaching him everything from throwing to loading kilns, making glazes and running a sale. Shaun talks listeners through centering clay on the wheel and his "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" method for rolling an even slab, describes how simple pinch pots helped a man named Ricardo rebuild his motor skills after a stroke, and remembers Studio on the Hill as a safe space where everyone who walked in the door was a potter. He explains how SoKo, named for his initials, became his own studio when he took it on on May 1st, and shares plans for a Christmas show and sale on November 6th, 7th and 8th, a possible spring sale and an Empty Bowls fundraiser, while Donna looks ahead to her Canadiana line. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate, and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to the removal of barriers. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal, and that is to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a quick spotlight on today's guest, a changemaker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am absolutely pleased and excited to welcome my pottery instructor, Shaun Kelly. Welcome, Shaun, to the Remarkable World Commentary podcast. Shaun Kelly: Thank you very much, Donna, for having me today. It's been a long time coming, and I'm excited to be part of the program. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You changed my life when we met. You have forced me to stretch my imagination and to use my imagination, based on the functional vision I had before I lost it, to develop pieces, to create, and there's no limit to what we've been able to do over the last few years. Shaun Kelly: Exactly. And that's the beauty of pottery, is it's a metaphor for life. We're always evolving, adapting, growing. The only time you lose is when you say, "I can't do it." You gotta push through, right? And we gotta find a way to do it. Shaun Kelly: And that's the beauty, is both you and myself, I've learned how to express, to communicate, to look and... I shouldn't say to look at things differently, to hear things differently, to feel things differently. To express things differently. Just because there's one way, a common way, doesn't mean there's several other ways that might even be better. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Absolutely. So Shaun, I would like to start right at the beginning, long before any of this was your work. Tell me how clay first turned up in your life, and what happened in that very first class that made you want to come back the following week? Shaun Kelly: Yeah, so I was very fortunate that my mom, she always had a love for pottery. And she said, "Come, come, come." And it was like, "Yes, I'm coming. I'm gonna be there." And then during that first class, you could build, right? You could build, you could create. You had the freedom to do what you wanted to do. And you literally had the tools in front of you to accomplish whatever that vision was. And doing this in a shared space, a group space, it had a lovely community feel. You got to meet people. You got to talk with people. And you learned from everybody. And from that first time, it was just like a lovely, humble family safe space that you could create anything you wanted in. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, was she a potter? Was your mom a potter? Shaun Kelly: Yeah, she was. She loved the pottery. She collected it first. And then she started to be a potter, and then both my brother and myself got involved. But I got hooked hard. I took it even further than just the therapeutic side, the hobby side. I went on to do it more professionally. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Now, you made a big turn in your life from working with technology to working with clay, and I know something about turns like that, because I have made a few of my very own. Walk me through how that turn actually happened for you. Not the tidy version, but the real one. Shaun Kelly: Exactly. So it was a big decision, right? When you pivot, when you change your career, your field of study, it's a big, big life-changing moment. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It is. It is. Shaun Kelly: And for me, it was slowly building. In my corporate life, in the life as a programmer, there was no leaving the building for lunch. No going to the gym. I was always on call, even on weekends. You had to be within an hour on call all the time. So I couldn't go afar. I couldn't go on vacations, and it really took a heavy toll on my life in terms of my health. Right? So I had money, right? I had a lovely career, but I had no time to spend it or to actually enjoy it. And it got to the point where I was 350 pounds. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, my lord. Shaun Kelly: It was just like, "What happened?" So it was like, my doctor said, "You have to make a life choice. You have to decide," right? "What are you gonna do?" And I chose a life, a healthy life. And that's what pottery gave me. Mentally, physically, it gave me that healthy lifestyle, that balance, right? That I think a lot of people need. Right? And all of us, like myself in my early days, I was just running, running, running, trying to get to the finish line, trying to make the buck. And I don't think that's what life was for me. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah, I can empathize with that. My goodness. I still remember how clumsy my own hands felt the first time [laughs] that I tried to center a lump of clay, and I doubt that you were born knowing how to do, either. Take me back to when the wheel was still new to you. What did you do over and over and again to get from clumsy to steady? Shaun Kelly: Exactly. And you're completely right. I was not a natural on the wheel by any means. I was very clumsy on the wheel. Trying to figure it out. And part of it is trying to center yourself so you can center the clay. So sometimes if you have a bad day, if you're distracted, if you can't focus, that can really throw off the work you're trying to do on the wheel. Shaun Kelly: So for me, I took a whole summer and I said to myself, "I'm gonna throw a bowl. I'm gonna make a bowl." And if I didn't, I'd scrap it and try again. And I just kept telling myself, "You know what? I can make a bowl. I can make a mug. I can make a cylinder." And I didn't give up. I just kept pursuing that. And I got closer and closer and closer until finally I achieved it, where by the end of that summer I could sit down, and say I wanted to make a bowl and I would make that bowl. And like you say, it's the repetition, the practice. A lot of it is muscle memory. So even for me now, I'll close my eyes and use my hands to feel the clay to reassure myself that, yes, I can do it. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I guess you know how much I detest the wheel, don't you? Shaun Kelly: [laughs] I hear you. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But I— Shaun Kelly: But sometimes we can't let it get the better of us. And it's a tough journey, I have to admit. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Well, I think that one of these days I will say, "Okay, wheel, I'm coming," you know? But right now... yeah. No, but I think you're right, absolutely right. Wow. Shaun Kelly: And when you get it, the success, that achievement, like, "Yes, I've done it,"

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #113: Interview with Shaun Kelly, Pottery Instructor, SoKo Pottery Studio

  6. Sep 17

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #112: Interview with Brian Moore, Senior Accessibility Specialist, TD

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #112: Interview with Brian Moore, Senior Accessibility Specialist, TD https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-17-2026/ In this candid episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA welcomes Brian Moore, a blind digital accessibility leader at TD Bank whom she has known for many years, for a conversation that runs from an eleven-year-old taking the bus alone in Montreal to a senior role auditing a national bank's apps and websites. Brian traces a career that began in 1994 at a small Calgary assistive technology organization in the DOS era, moved through close to twenty years of tech support at Frontier Computing in Toronto, and became a self-taught specialty in web and document accessibility once AODA compliance started bringing people to his door. Along the way he is unusually frank about what he learned from the other end of the support line, about tokenism in earlier jobs, about automated scanners catching only thirty to forty percent of accessibility issues, and about the day he had to ask his eleven-year-old son to sign his own employment background check because the form was inaccessible. The heart of the episode is a barrier Donna and Brian hit roughly two decades apart. Both were blocked from a professional certification not by the subject matter but by diagrams no human reader could neutrally describe, and both walked away with the knowledge and without the paper. Brian argues the fix is structural rather than personal: standardized alternative descriptions supplied by the test provider, delivered to a computer rather than read aloud by a person. They close on the discipline of picking your battles, the ones Brian has lost, and his conviction that advocacy has to leave room for actually living a life. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its website accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal: to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench where policy meets lived experience, and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today's guest, a changemaker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. Brian Moore, I'd like to welcome you to our Remarkable World Commentary podcast. You and I go back many years. I won't tell our listeners how many years, but it is a pleasure and a privilege to have you. I've watched you grow. I'm really, really proud of what you've done and the way you stick up for something whenever it matters to you. Welcome to my show. Brian Moore: Thanks, Donna. I appreciate you inviting me. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Anytime. So, Brian, most people meet accessibility as a rule they have to follow. You have spent more than 30 years meeting it as a way of life. Tell our listeners who you are and what you actually do on an ordinary Tuesday at the bank. Brian Moore: Okay. So I am a blind person first. So that's the lens that I bring to everything, because it's unavoidable, right? I can't turn that piece off. I mean, so what I do impacts my real life every day, and the lives of many people I know. Brian Moore: So my job is actually sort of leading a digital accessibility program. So things like, we should ensure that our apps and our websites and basically as many of our processes as we can get to and dig into are accessible to everyone. And that involves all kinds of things. So, like you said in the introduction, I've been in the accessibility space for almost my entire adult life. In everything ranging from tech support to helping with website design, like where you're actually in the code, to sort of now more of a manager role where I don't get to be a geek quite as often. I still get to do some of it because it's fun, but now it's a bit more of an oversight role, and audit, and providing training, and sort of trying to influence policy decisions and that type of thing. Brian Moore: So my typical day will involve maybe coaching on code, maybe meeting with the vendor to push them to make sure that the things that we're buying that we're going to use to expose to customers are accessible, to meeting with senior leadership to say, hey, this is why you should do what we do, and this is why you should not push back against this executive order from the government that says that DEI and accessibility, which was included, are bad and against the will of whatever flavor God you believe in. So it's a whole range of things. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So basically, Brian, you're all over the place, right? Brian Moore: Yeah. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Enjoy it. Brian Moore: I do, I love it. I still love it even after 30 years. Means change, but I still love it. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now you have said that you started out at a school for the blind and then moved into mainstream school while you were still living in the school's residence. That is a very particular kind of childhood, in that it is one foot in each world. What did living in both of them at once teach you that you still carry with you today? Brian Moore: So I've heard a lot of people who sort of were in mainstream education and had a terrible time, like didn't have any friends and didn't have good interactions with their peers and stuff. And that simply was not my experience. I think part of that, which was an unheard of concept when I went, was people get educational aids now, like a full time adult to trail them about. No wonder they don't have friends. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right? Brian Moore: I had none of that. When I was 11 years old, I took public transit to school and that was just normal. Like I took the STM, or whatever they're calling it now, in Montreal. And that was just expected, right? That was part of integration. Brian Moore: I think we spend a lot of time now, particularly in education, but I've seen it in other areas, where we shelter people too much, like try and insulate them from the real world, and consequently they don't adjust to it well. And the downside of that, I mean, there's a few downsides, but one of them is that you don't develop the friendships and the social interactions that are typical of a kid in school. And that I did develop, because I didn't have an adult shadow, because I went places by myself. I don't know, I could go on. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But it's true. I mean, I grew up a bit ahead of, you know, of your era here. And it was the same thing for us. You know, we did this. We didn't have an adult chaperones as such. And today it's so much more sheltered for these poor guys. Right. Brian Moore: Yeah. Like the concept of an 11 year old kid taking public transit to school. They just wouldn't do it now. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, no. Brian Moore: But, I mean, look at the bright side. I haven't had an O and M lesson since I was 12, and I'm almost 60, because they did a really good job of teaching me the basics. They covered it well. They did what they call structured discovery before it was called structured discovery. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Boy, things have changed a lot. Brian Moore: Yeah. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Gosh. Now take me back to 1993 and that small organization in Calgary where all of this began for you. What did assistive technology even look like back then? And what was it that made you decide, this is the work I want? Brian Moore: So it was actually an organization. So in, well, 1994, actually, that was Calgary, the TRC. So I would have been 27. And it was an organization that did assistive technology for various disabilities. Actually, blind wasn't one of them. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Brian Moore: It was mostly people with physical issues. So it was things like Dragon and what very limited alternative keyboards there were at the time. So it was all DOS. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, gosh. Okay. Brian Moore: Yeah. There was no Windows yet. Really? Well, there was 3.1, but it wasn't sup

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #112: Interview with Brian Moore, Senior Accessibility Specialist, TD

  7. Sep 16

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #111: Interview with Priscilla Gagne, Paralympic Athlete, Judo Canada

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #111: Interview with Priscilla Gagne, Paralympic Athlete, Judo Canada https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-16-2026/ In this genuinely uplifting episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA welcomes three-time Paralympian Priscilla Gagné, who traces a path from a childhood in Granby and Sarnia, where doctors spent more than two decades cycling through diagnoses before landing on a rare, then-unstudied form of retinitis pigmentosa, to a silver medal in Para judo. Gagné describes a home where she was allowed to scrape her knees and a school system that would not let her run, the two years at W. Ross Macdonald School that taught her to advocate for herself, and the rugby team that made her the water girl and gave her the same ribbons as everyone else. She walks listeners plainly through how para judo classification and weight classes actually work, and is candid that the hardest part of moving to the national training centre in Montreal was not the training volume but the years when almost nobody would partner with the blind athlete on the mat. The through-line is belief as a discipline rather than a mood. Gagné explains what ninety percent of a fight being mental actually looks like in practice, lyric-free music so the imagery stays hers, fight-by-fight rehearsal, and saying "I want to be here" out loud until she meant it, and describes rehearsing the Rio nerves in an elevator doorway until they lost their grip. She is equally direct about the everyday work of access: drive the car yourself, be patient with people who have never met a blind athlete, and insist on training partners who have both skill and empathy, because either one alone fails. Donna closes by inviting her to speak for her Believing is Achieving initiative, and Gagné shares what is next, a green card, judo and self-defence programmes in American schools for the blind, and a massage therapy certification to carry her through the transition. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, an author, a lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November of 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its website accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups with equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removal of barriers. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal: to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today's guest, a changemaker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I'm very pleased, and I'm very privileged to welcome Priscilla Gagné to our show. Priscilla, welcome to the Remarkable World. Priscilla Gagné: Thank you so much. Wow, what an introduction. You are incredible. What a phenomenal intro. I love stubborn optimist. I'm going to start using that. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Well, I am sure that you are ready and willing to take up the baton and move on. Okay, so let's start with the beginning. And Priscilla, I'd love to begin at the very beginning. Take me back to your early years in Granby and Sarnia, and help my listeners to understand what childhood was like for you growing up with retinitis pigmentosa. Priscilla Gagné: Sure. So my parents didn't know that I had a vision impairment when I was born. There's. Sorry. Go ahead. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I said, oh. Priscilla Gagné: Oh, yeah. They didn't know. It took them, I think I was 18 months old when my mom noticed that my eyes were shaking. I guess she was changing my diaper or she was doing something and she was trying to get me to follow her fingers. She was wiggling her fingers and she's trying to get my eyes to follow her fingers. And apparently I could do it, but my eyes were making like little circles as they were focusing so hard on the movement. And so she brought me into the doctor and they just said, bring me back when I'm older and we'll get glasses. Priscilla Gagné: So when I was three we ended up moving to Ontario. But so we were back and forth from different hospitals, Montreal and Ontario. And they said it was a lot more serious than they knew and that I would probably go blind. And at first they thought that it was Leber's congenital amaurosis. They put me under so many different types of testing because they were wondering, is it a tumor that's blocking something? They really didn't know. So I went through a lot, a lot of testing and finally they just said it's Leber's congenital amaurosis. Eventually they said it was macular degeneration. And then I went along and rod-cone dystrophy. And then I went many, many years, a good ten years where they just didn't know. They just didn't have a diagnosis for me. And it wasn't until I was probably 25 when a neuro-ophthalmologist and a retinal consultant finally made the discovery that it was a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa that hadn't yet been studied. Priscilla Gagné: So that's why they were a little bit unaware. So childhood with that in mind. So my vision, I had night vision, couldn't see in the dark. Or if it was dimly lit, I couldn't follow things. It was too fast or busy. The room was too full of stuff and people, I couldn't keep track. I couldn't follow anybody. Little things. Like I couldn't follow a hockey puck. I couldn't find toys on the ground. That sort of thing. Couldn't read anything that wasn't extremely large, bold print. Priscilla Gagné: And so but I had a tenacity. I was born with a just wanted grit, you know, I just wanted to do what everybody else is doing and just try to stop me. But I was also extremely shy. So the combination of those two things, me being shy and yet me having this strong desire to belong and to just do what everybody else is doing, kind of clashed. And eventually, because going through school became difficult. At home, I was allowed to do pretty much anything. My parents were divorced. And so my dad, when I go to my dad's house, he would basically let me try anything with my older brother. You know, safety in mind, but one of the like, you can scrape your knees and you'll be fine. You'll figure it out. You know, you'll learn your limits. But my mom was the opposite. Priscilla Gagné: Like, you can ride a bike, but you have to wear a shoulder pad. You have to wear knee pads, elbow pads, you know, wrist guards. If she could have wrapped me in bubble wrap, she would have, but love her for it. But in all of that to say, I had no real limits at home. I was allowed to experiment and just be a kid and just try things. And my family was super supportive. Cousins, aunts, uncles. I mean, I had all the support one could dream of, but that all would change when I started school. Priscilla Gagné: So in school, they didn't want me running around on the equipment. They didn't want me doing the Terry Fox Run. I wanted to join the track team and nobody volunteered to guide me and they wouldn't assign anybody. So I just wasn't allowed to run. And, you know, fast forward when I turned 14, I went to W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Brantford, Ontario. My mom didn't want me to, and I guess the people from Brantford had tried for many years while I was in elementary school to convince her to let me go to the school, and I didn't know, she never told me about it. And so my vision resource teacher in the seventh grade, she was telling me, or eighth grade, I think I was in eighth grade. She was telling me about it and I was like, well, this sounds amazing. I want to go check it out. Priscilla Gagné: You know, I didn't care that it was residential. I didn't care that I had to live there for the week and come back. I just wanted to see this dreamland of all things sports, you know? And so I got to go for a tour. My mom came, the vision resource teacher came, my educational assistant, she came, and my grandma and my mom and dad. And so here we came, my little entourage all in different cars. I think we had like three or four cars. And I don't know why we didn't just carpool. But anyway we drove about 2.5 hours to Brantford and I got a tour of the school and the residence, what life might look like. Pr

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #111: Interview with Priscilla Gagne, Paralympic Athlete, Judo Canada

  8. Sep 2

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #110: One Size Does Not Fit All

    🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #110: One Size Does Not Fit All https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-02-2026/ In this reflective episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA presents her first solo podcast for September and builds it around a single argument: one size does not fit all. Thanking listeners who have written in, she makes the case that no template can meet every situation, because every person with a disability has a unique requirement and a unique set of needs, a mistake she admits making herself at times, and one she calls a lack of respect. It applies, she says, whether you are a phone rep, an agent, a teacher, a government department, or any other type of entity. She then unpacks the assumption that lies underneath it. People hear blind or vision impaired and conclude the person has no vision at all, which she calls a very false statement. She walks through the range instead: functional vision, where a person moves independently but needs glasses for distance or close reading; low vision, where a screen can be read only with special devices and only slowly; minimal vision, her own, where light, dark and shadows come through; and no vision at all. The same spread exists for hearing loss, she notes, a person may be categorized as having hearing loss, but how much? Her story of the month comes from a listener who used her Mental Stretch technique, built on drawing on the different senses, after unwittingly becoming a victim of online dating. A perpetrator nearly extracted a large sum with an untrue story, but the listener sat down, gathered their resources and their thoughts, spoke to trusted friends, and recognized the scam just in the nick of time. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access, technology, and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Greetings, everybody. And I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your host for the Remarkable World Commentary. And this is my solo podcast for September, my first solo podcast for September. Hope everybody is doing good. So I want to thank everybody for all those who have taken the time to write to me. Those who have taken the time to give me their feedback and tell me what they're thinking. Thank you everybody. So for this month, month of September, my first solo podcast, I want to talk about this topic. All right. One size does not fit all. And I'm praying and hoping that the rest of the world is listening somehow, and that this statement will help others to realize that, no, one size does not fit all. Right. And yes, it does not fit all. We're all not the same. We're all very unique people in our own way. We're each very unique people in our own way. Okay. And why do I say this? One size does not fit all. You cannot use a template to match, or to meet, every single situation in a landscape where there are too many different types of situations, there are too many different types of circumstances. When I say one size does not fit all, I mean that in the case of a person with a disability, it is simply not possible to say one size will fit all. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Every single person with a disability has a unique requirement and a unique set of needs. Okay. This is a definite, definite mistake that so many of us make, including me at times, but I don't think it applies. I don't think it is appropriate. It's a lack of respect really in many, many ways. Saying one size fits all — one size does not fit all. Okay. It doesn't matter if you are a phone rep or agent, or a teacher, a government department, or any other type of entity. One size does not fit all. Too many people fall into the trap of thinking that because one is blind or vision impaired, there's only one set of requirements to be done. And they think that because a person is blind or vision impaired, that person has no vision. And that's a very, very, very false statement. The word, or the term, blind or vision impaired, sight impaired, a person with sight loss, applies to different persons with different types of, or different levels of, vision loss. So if you say a person who is blind or vision impaired, that person could be someone with functional vision. That is, they can get around on their own, but they need glasses to help them see things at distances or read things close up. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Then you have the person with low vision. Again, can probably see a screen, can probably read a screen, but can only do it reading with special devices, and they do it reading very slowly. Then you have the person who has minimal vision, like myself, probably can see light and dark and shadows. And then you have the person with no vision, can't see anything. And I may not even be touching on all of the levels of vision loss, but what I'm trying to say is that when one is told that a person is blind or vision impaired, or a person with sight loss, it does not mean that that person is totally blind. Okay. All right. There are different levels of vision loss that fall under the category of blind or vision impaired, and it is the same for other types of disabilities. Persons with hearing loss. There are different levels of hearing loss amongst persons with hearing loss. Okay. I hope I'm making sense or saying it clearly enough. Again, hearing loss applies to different levels of hearing loss, not just one level. So a person may be categorized as a person with hearing loss, but how much hearing loss does this person have? Again, what I'm trying to emphasize here is that one size does not fit all, okay? Each person with a disability is a separate case to be considered. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I don't like using the word case, but each person with a disability has a unique need. All right. My story of the month is one that was sent in to us by someone who has used my Mental Stretch technique to help them out. My stretch technique emphasizes using different senses like sense of smell, sense of hearing, sense of touch, sense of feeling, sense of sight. And for this month, I have someone who has sent in their experience of using my Mental Stretch to help them as an online dating victim. This person, or this listener, inadvertently or unwittingly became a victim of online dating. I guess they went into it with their eyes half closed, or maybe their eyes shut, so to speak, became a victim of online dating because the person who was encouraging them or inviting them to date did not provide them with the true details, and they ended up almost having to pay a lot of money to this… this… almost having to pay quite a bit of money to the person who was inviting them. I can't seem to get the word right now. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Perpetrator. That's it. The perpetrator almost, almost got this poor old victim to pay them a bunch of money because they gave them a [stress SOS? 00:09:40] — gave them a story that was not true. But the victim was able to deal with it after having sat down, used our mental techniques and our Mental Stretch. And they got their act together, gathered their resources and their thoughts, spoke to some trusted friends, and realized just in the nick of time that the perpetrator was only a perpetrator and no one that had any good intention of dating in a meaningful, committed and open manner. That's my story for this month. Someone who was a victim of online dating and someone who used our Mental Stretch, which is built on the use of using different senses to help them get out of it. So you use a sense of smell. Sense of touch. Sense of hearing. Sense of feeling. Sense of taste. Sense of sight. Your five senses. This is it for me. For this month. For my first Remarkable World Commentary solo podcast, I'm Donna J. Jodhan. Please write to me at donnajodhan@gmail.com and let me know how you're doing. Okay? Write to me at Donna Jodhan, donnajodhan@gmail.com. Take care now and see you again real soon. Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.

    Remarkable World Commentary Episode #110: One Size Does Not Fit All
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About

Podcasts By Donna Jodhan feature a variety of audio podcasts that focus on the future of children, particularly those with disabilities. As a blind advocate and entrepreneur, Donna shares her insights, life experiences, and advocacy efforts, aiming to inspire and inform her listeners. Her podcasts cover issues such as accessibility, inclusivity, and breaking down barriers in technology and everyday life, encouraging collective efforts to create a better and more equitable future for all children.

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  • Creator
    Donna J. Jodhan
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    300
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024
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    Podcasts By Donna Jodhan