This article on the Birdability organization was written by Danyan Yang, a VFAS student volunteer.
What image does your brain generate when the word “birding” pops up? A group of elderly people STANDING with their binoculars? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it just doesn’t show the whole picture!
“Birding is for everybody and every body”—this is the vision of the Birdability organization. This is a nonprofit that makes birding something anyone and everyone can do, but focusing on people with mobility challenges, blindness/low vision, chronic illness, intellectual/developmental disabilities, mental illness, neurodivergence, deafness/hard of hearing or other health concerns. They spread the joys of birding to people with disabilities, ensuring accessibility for all.
They use education, outreach, and advocacy to create a welcoming, inclusive, safe, and accessible birding environment for current birders; and also work to bring the joys of birding to a wider audience of people with health concerns.
This organization has 3 spokes in realizing their vision, explained below:
- “Improve the physical accessibility of birding locations”—they aim for everyone to be able to access and enjoy trails, bird blinds, observation platforms, and various other birding locations. On their website, there’s a crowdsourced Birdability Map that details accessibility information on many locations.
- “Empower a welcoming and inclusive birding community”—from the outing leader to an entire organization, they cover actions that people can take to create a friendly and encouraging community. Their Welcoming and Inclusive Birders and Inclusive Organizations Guidance Documents have more information.
- “Introduce people with access challenges to birding”—they want to go beyond just passively waiting, and instead actively reach out to bird clubs, nature centers, and more, to invite people with disabilities and other health concerns to share the joys of birding.
People with spinal cord injuries, amputations, multiple sclerosis, and much more…they’re looking for YOU! Birdability hopes to share the joys of birding with people with disabilities, and they have many things in mind: accessible outings at birding festivals, programming at camps for kids with disabilities and rehabilitation hospitals, and introducing Birdability as a service project, among many others.
“No one can predict what an individual with an accessibility challenge can or cannot do,” said Virginia Rose, a birder with a spinal cord injury, a manual wheelchair user, and the founder of Birdability. That being said, they embrace diversity in all aspects, actively combat the social model of disability, and strive to not just “do no harm” but also make a positive difference. Another iconic saying they have is: “Often it is the environment that is disabling rather than the person who is disabled.” Additionally, to empower others, they share resources, acknowledge intersectionality, consider the power of representation, and think about universal design.
Inclusion and diversity is what Birdability is all about, and they aim to uphold those values with their platform. In addition to making birding accessible to everybody, they acknowledge that much of US land has been stolen from Indigenous people, and thus seek to support and extend their gratitude to Indigenous organizations. Specifically, Birdability amplifies and uplifts experiences/stories of diverse birders, speaks out against discrimination of any kind, transparently represents their team and guests, and spreads awareness on social media and among other organizations.
Birdability combines birding and enjoying nature with inclusiveness and diversity, and they have many aspirations, but in the end, it really comes down to “birding truly is for everybody and every body”.
For more information, check out their website: https://www.birdability.org/
