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Re: Community Activism (wasRegarding Section 508discussion)

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Feb 10, 2015 12:29PM

Yes, social media is definitely one method.
To have the highest impact, It should be organized by our organizations.
Anyone out there want to take on this role?
--Bevi Chagnon

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of John Foliot
Sent: Monday, February 9, 2015 5:49 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: [WebAIM] Community Activism (was RE: Regarding Section 508
discussion)

Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
>
>
> Regarding what we can do:
<snip>
> And contact President Obama here:
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
>

Actually Bevi, there is also this: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov

However you/we have just 30 days to get 100,000 signatures in order to get a
response from the White House. And it's up to you/us to get to 150
signatures in order for your petition to be publicly searchable on the We
the People tool on WhiteHouse.gov.

I am confident that we could get the 150 signatures in a few hours (Social
media!), but can we get 100,000? Hitting that number would take a conserted
effort from a number of groups to mobilize their base: AFB, NFB, and AFD
quickly come to mind, and many more like that. There is also the
community(ies) of people who work in EDU and GOV spaces that deal with these
issues routinely, as well as many similar folk in the private sector (like,
you know, many of the people reading this now :-) )

However, we don't get multiple kicks at the can here, so the advance work
leading up to a petition would need to be covered by a grass-roots effort.
Perhaps tying the launch (or completion) of the petition to GAAD (Global
Accessibility Awareness Day) might help
(http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/gaad.html) - this year it's May
15th. Personally, at this time I can't jump in too deep on this effort (and
besides, I'm Canadian eh), but happy to lend a vote of moral support and any
help with broadcasting a plan.

Tossing it out there for thoughts.

JF