For National Inclusion Week, Voices in Exile and Calling All Minds are showing why access to information can be part of access to safety, support and choice
National Inclusion Week runs from 14 to 20 September, and this year’s theme, Build Trust. Navigate Change., feels particularly relevant to the work of Voices in Exile.
For refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, navigating unfamiliar systems can already be difficult enough.
A new language, immigration processes, housing, healthcare, welfare support and simply understanding where to go for help can all be happening at the same time. For someone rebuilding their life in a new country, being able to understand what support exists and how to reach it can matter enormously.
If essential information is difficult to find, understand or use, it can become another barrier between somebody and the help they need.
Voices in Exile works across Brighton and Sussex to support refugees, asylum seekers and migrants at risk. Its work includes immigration and welfare advice, housing and homelessness support, ESOL, digital inclusion and practical support to help people move towards greater safety, stability and independence.
That makes access to information important.
For some of the women supported by Voices in Exile, learning English through ESOL may be their first experience of a classroom, reading or writing. At the same time, they may be navigating benefits, healthcare, housing and an entirely new system.
Other people may be disabled or neurodivergent, find dense written information difficult to process or have limited confidence using digital systems. Trauma and uncertainty can make navigating all of this harder still.
These experiences do not happen neatly or separately.
What brings Voices in Exile and Calling All Minds together is a shared belief that people should not have to overcome another barrier simply to find out what help is available to them.
That is why Voices in Exile has introduced the AXS Accessibility Toolbar to its website.
Susan Blaylock of Voices in Exile explains:
“At Voices in Exile, we want everyone who visits our website to be able to access information in a way that works for them. Many of the people we support face barriers to accessing services, whether due to language, literacy, neurodiversity, disability or confidence using digital systems. The AXS Toolbar gives people more choice and control over how they engage with our website, helping to make essential information more accessible, inclusive and easier to navigate.”
The Toolbar gives people different ways into the same information. Content can be translated into different languages or read aloud, while reading, focus and visual tools can make information easier to navigate for people with dyslexia, ADHD or other processing differences.
What matters is what those choices can mean for someone trying to access support.
When essential information is only available in complex written English, support may technically exist but still be out of reach.
Being able to translate that information, hear it read aloud or change how it appears on the page may seem like a small thing. But when someone is trying to understand what support exists and how to reach it, access can be a lifeline.
This is the thinking behind what we call Anticipatory Welcome at Calling All Minds.
We are a disabled-led social enterprise that brings an intersectional lens to inclusion and starts from the lived realities of the people most likely to experience barriers.
Anticipatory Welcome is about recognising some of those barriers before somebody has to struggle with them. It does not assume that we can anticipate everything. It asks us to do more with what we already know.
Atif Choudhury, CEO of Calling All Minds:
“The support someone needs may already exist, but if they cannot understand the information telling them what is available or how to reach it, that support can still be out of reach. For someone learning English, navigating unfamiliar systems or carrying the impact of trauma, access to information can be part of access to safety, support and choice. Anticipatory Welcome means recognising those barriers and designing for more of that reality from the start.”
That feels especially relevant during National Inclusion Week.
Building trust is not only about telling people they are welcome. It is also about whether the systems they encounter show that their needs were considered before they arrived.
The AXS Toolbar is one practical step Voices in Exile has taken towards doing that.
It will not remove every barrier. No single piece of technology can.
But the commitment behind it is much bigger than a Toolbar.
If information is essential, access to it should be essential too.
-- Atif Choudhury CEO
