Chevening Leadership and Influence Essay Example: Accessibility coordinator at a civic services organization

As an accessibility coordinator in Colombo, I noticed disabled residents were avoiding three civic services in my ward: the municipal permit counter, a divisional public health clinic, and the community library. The barrier looked like design, not awareness. I proposed a structured testing programme and recruited 12 residents with mobility, vision, and hearing disabilities to walk through forms, signage, and appointment systems before any redesign. Three service managers resisted. They worried testing would slow counters already behind on monthly targets. I did not outrank them, so I built the case on what residents showed us. I prepared a side-by-side log matching each form field, sign, and booking step to the difficulty observed during testing, including unreadable clinic signage and an online permit form that screen readers could not parse. I asked each manager for one review meeting and let residents speak first. Within two months, all three services revised priority forms and signage, and the permit office piloted a staff-assisted appointment slot drawn from our notes. On follow-up, 9 of 12 participants reported easier access on a repeat visit; the library manager asked for a written summary of the method to use on future updates, and the clinic supervisor added participatory review to her next staff meeting agenda. Residents told me it was the first time their experience had been treated as information rather than complaint. I can coordinate one service area; I cannot yet write accessibility into standards. MSc Disability Studies at Leeds would give me grounding in policy design and rights-based audit methods. On return, I will bring an accessibility review checklist to the Colombo Municipal Council planning unit, ask my director to sponsor a one-quarter pilot across four service points, and track revised forms and repeat-visit access as the decision indicators.