Embrace uniqueness: celebrate disability pride month with MiAccess
According to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 6 of us experience significant disability. This Disability Pride Month, we invite you to celebrate diversity by exploring MiAccess, a project we created to support culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people with disabilities.
Happy Disability Pride Month!
Disability Pride Month celebrates people with disabilities by encouraging the wider community to learn more about their contributions, recognising their challenges and working together to create a more inclusive society. The colourful Disability Pride flag is a reflection of the diversity of the disability community. Different types and levels of disability, and different social and cultural backgrounds lead to unique access needs.
Intersectionality impacts people with disabilities. Research found that people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are more likely to experience social exclusion, isolation, and marginalisation. Many struggle to participate in cultural and social activities, and are less likely to receive formal assistance.
The Australian Government has established the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to support people with disabilities. However, the CALD people with disabilities face various barriers accessing these services. Some CALD communities are unfamiliar with the concept of disability, which results in people with disabilities feeling unsupported and reluctant to seek help. They may also have access difficulties such as language barriers, and lack of confidence in negotiation. The lack of knowledge about NDIS keeps them in social exclusion and further hinders them from seeking help.
CALD people with disabilities should be celebrated for their unique identities, but not burdened with extra barriers. That’s why we developed MiAccess—an innovative project empowering people with disabilities from CALD backgrounds to better access information and services offered by the NDIS.
Introducing the MiAccess Website
MiAccess addresses social and cultural barriers the disability community faces by building a bridge using our cultural and linguistic expertise.
The multilingual website miaccess.com.au is currently fully navigable in 15 languages other than English, including Arabic, Cantonese (Chinese Traditional), Dari, Hazaragi, Khmer, Korean, Mandarin (Chinese Simplified), Nepali, Persian (excluding Dari), Punjabi, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese. The website hosts translated resources in 57 languages, creating a library of information, support and services for the disability community.
Beyond various cultural and language needs, this website is also designed to meet diverse access needs. It complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Users can easily adjust contrast, text size, spacing, alignment, as well as enlarging the cursor, applying reading masks, hiding images, or switching to dyslexia-friendly fonts.
A comprehensive collection of resources is published, including fact sheets, videos, and audio materials. They are labelled in 16 disability areas to be better retrieved, such as cerebral palsy, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, and psychosocial disability.
Growing Over the Years
The website miacces.com.au has been constantly updated and reviewed over the last 5 years. We update the resources, enhance the accessibility features, refresh website layout and add links to culturally appropriate service providers. We plan to increase languages available for full navigation of the website and keep adding new relevant multilingual resources, benefiting more communities and making sure to deliver the most up-to-date information covering more topics.
Beyond website updates, MiAccess has also developed engaging projects. In 2021-2022, we delivered an immersive virtual reality (VR) learning experience in 4 languages at 24 information sessions and 10 conferences. Delivered in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Arabic, the VR tool tells personal stories that resonate with audiences to demonstrate how NDIS plans can empower individuals and enhance their quality of life.
Since June 2023, we have partnered with the Diversity and Disability Alliance to create a video series exploring the social model of disability framework. The videos feature the lived experiences of individuals to highlight the importance of considering the framework when responding to disability issues in CALD communities. In August 2025, we launched the MiAccess image library, which hosts images of real people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia living with disabilities.
Celebrating Disability Pride Month with MiAccess
MiAccess benefited the CALD people with disabilities through bridging culture, language and accessibility gaps, ensuring an effective delivery of information and services. It was listed as one of the finalists of the 2025 AdNews Champions of Change entry.
Disability Pride Month celebrates inclusion and unique identities. Join us to share resources in your language from the MiAccess website about disabilities, helping people with disabilities in CALD communities learn more about the support services available. Connect, thrive, and embrace who we are.
Let’s celebrate uniqueness together!
