In the Community
MLPD Advocacy
MLPD Advocacy
Together we can create an accessible and inclusive province for all Manitobans.
MLPD engages in advocacy and referral to community resources at the individual level, and advocacy at the municipal, provincial and national levels.
Advocacy Service
Are you experiencing accessibility concerns with access to income supports, navigating access to accommodation supports, access to housing, navigating utility bills, access to transportation supports, or parenting with a disability? We are here to provide a listening ear, referrals, and systemic advocacy. Connect with us by phone at 204-943-6099, or by email at contact@mlpd.mb.ca
Decolonization Work
“What you call disabilities, we call gifts”.
National Accessibility Awareness Week For 2023 National Accessibility Awareness Week, MLPD hosted an online discussion with Elder Louise MacKay, Melanie Marsden, Jeannie Whitebird, and Tara Petti. The focus of the discussion was making Indigenous cultural events, spaces, and everyday life accessible. Indigenous cultural ways are about the gifts we all carry and having a good life throughout our journey, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what we look like. Participants in this discussion talked about their abilities, their challenges, and their advocacy for inclusion.
Discussions like this are one of many ways that MLPD is working towards decolonizing disability and we look forward to hosting more in the future.
Our Health Counts
MLPD was invited into this project by Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre. This research project will help better understand and count Indigenous people in health statistics, where they have historically been undercounted.
MLPD Executive Director Melissa Graham is attending on behalf of the organization to share perspectives between the disability and Indigenous communities and contributes to our work in decolonizing disability.
Creating Accessible Workplaces
Disability and Employment
MLPD is a partner in “Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity”, or WORBE. This multi-stakeholder project, supported by the federal government, is designed to get people with disabilities employed at Canada Post and is looking to extend the initiative to other Crown Corporations. We are in the first year of this project, for which the National Educational Association of Disabled Students holds the funding. MLPD is the only organization from the Prairies involved in the project. MLPD brings an important perspective to this project as members of the steering committee. As part of this project, MLPD was involved in training the job coaches who will be working with the program participants. This will support us in future projects where we may be supporting people with disabilities and gifts to find employment.
We also created a series of videos on Supporting Mid-Career Workers with Disabilities.
Webinar on the Rights of Disabled Employees
Supporting Mid-Career Workers with Disabilities- Resources
Resources related to employment and career adaptability for mid-career workers with disabilities.
These resources were developed by MLPD in partnership with The Mid-Career Workers with Disabilities through Community-building, Education, and Career-Progression Resources (MCWD) Project. For more information about the project click here.
A series of video clips enacting conversations between an employee and their manager. Each video will deal with disability-related issues that may arise in the workplace.
Welcome to the MLPD Mid-career workers with Disabilities series on tough conversations at work. In this video, you will watch a worker and her supervisor discuss various topics related to disability in employment.
Many people dread these tough conversations – both workers and supervisors. They can be uncomfortable for the worker due to the level of vulnerability we feel discussing sensitive and personal topics. Supervisors may also feel uncomfortable if they have not had sufficient accessibility training or haven’t had sufficient practice in using their training.
We hope these short clips will be useful in illustrating the importance of having a robust system of policies and procedures in place at the organization. We further hope it will demonstrate the importance of ensuring both supervisors and employees are aware of accessibility accommodations in the workforce.
The Return to Work resource is a self-paced online learning tool. You may find this information useful if you are mid-career, live with a disability, and are ready to return to work after a leave or gap in employment.
We have divided the information into two themes:
1) Returning to the workforce after a gap in employment
2) Returning to work after a leave of absence
After reviewing this material, you will have:
A greater sense of what you can expect when returning to work after a leave. We’ll look at the roles and responsibilities of people involved in the process.
Gained insight into what challenges you may face during the process (and how you might navigate through them).
Increased your confidence in asking for and receiving fair and adequate accommodations.
Creating An Accessible Manitoba
MLPD’s staff, Council Members, and volunteers actively participate in many committees, public forums, and other initiatives to ensure the perspectives of the disability community are represented, with the ultimate goal of creating an accessible and inclusive Manitoba for all people with disabilities and gifts.
For more information on our accessibility projects, please visit the links below.
Accessible Canada Project
For National Accessibility Week 2023 and 2024, MLPD is partnering with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), the National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS), and Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers to create a series of webinars.