Thank you everyone for joining my first Accessibility meet up. There were 37 peoples were joining from many countries and stay until the final session, I really appreciate your support. This is shown our support as a Local Guides to the Accessibility. Every contribution is counts, lets continue this movement and spread across the world! ACCESSIBILITY is a MUST.
And thank you for the great support from local guides - accessibility champion: @KashifMisidia @JaneBurunina @EmekaUlor 
As part of #LGCannivmeetups - Unofficial Local Guides Connect Worldwide 4th Anniversary Celebrations I was planning to conduct a special meet up too, therefore I decided to choose an accessibility topic which very interested to me. Especially after attended some accessibilities meet up which so inspiring. The initial plan was sharing my little contribution in google maps around Jakarta and Tangerang areas where I lived and doing my daily activities. I was so fortunate to meet Mario the Founder of Café Sunyi and invited him as a guest speaker. Asking him to share his journey about the café. This collaboration made this meet up very inspiring.
First session:
Sharing about overview Accessibility in Indonesia, what are the regulations and the updates from the government which provides a quota of 2% for persons with disabilities in State Own Enterprises as the commitment of the government to fulfill the disability rights.
Continue with my little contribution in google maps. I was started to modify my profile which included accessibility support, which may increase the visibility for my networks that I am supporting the accessibility.
Next, share some examples of my review on google maps which has the accessibility facilities. Some health centers, mosque, hypermarket. What interesting from my little research, there are some places that have accessibility facilities but there is no review from any local guides about accessibility itself although so many numbers of reviews have been done.
But I found another place which is a mosque that has accessibility facilities also has many reviews by local guides which including disable information in the reviews.
The differences between the two are because this unique mosque has been published in electronic media, therefore peoples are aware of this and some local guides also provided their review included this unique feature.
Second session:
Mario, a young man as a founder of Sunyi Café sharing the journey about this cafe. This session was so powerful, Mario has passionate about the accessibility on top of his business. These are some presentations that he was presented about disabilities.
Not only selling coffee, but it also functions as a training school for people with disabilities. Sunyi focuses to keep innovating, especially in the online field and the formation of new products in order to survive in this pandemic conditions. Mario combines his passion in the field of humanity with his ambition to become an entrepreneur. Mario and his college friends build Sunyi House of Coffee and Hope. Why they named it Sunyi? Sunyi in Indonesia language is silence, which is a café that has a noble purpose, namely to provide opportunities and to accommodate friends who are considered disabled. Sunyi House of Coffee and Hope is a Social-entrepreneurship where all employees consist of those who are considered disabled.
Sunyi was launched on April 3rd, 2019, the company dedicated to being the solution for disability communities. They provide them with a place for idea creation, education, job opportunity, and a place which they can call as home. They dreamed of becoming a bridge of two worlds, also becoming an ambassador of inclusivity and equality. The idea to build this type of business because his father is using a wheelchair and found many difficulties with his condition. Like another café, Sunyi has excellent Food & Beverages products: coffee, beverages, food, and even merchandise are proven to be excellent tangible products. But they also have intangible products such as consultant for events, collaborations and education, CSR partner. If you have time visiting this cafe, you will find that Sunyi staff is teaching sign language in the café. I saw it by myself.
In the beginning, Sunyi was help employed 16 disabled peoples, 5 deaf, 1 physical disabled, and 10 from disability communities. In 2020, they employed 36 disabled people and act as the first official sign language in Jakarta. They are planning to open the second branch very soon, with aims 6 deaf, 2 physical disabled, 20 disability communities, and 200 students for sign language class in one year. By expanding and growing the business, they will able to help more communities. Mario also developed the school for the deaf, conducted the training also for the deaf once a month, and employed them in his cafe or if they are not working with Sunyi, at least they had a soft skill from the training which may help.
This is so inspiring!
Third session:
Sharing from other Tangerang Local Guides members about some areas that they visited which have accessibility facilities. One of the places that were presented is AEON Mall in East Jakarta with a huge number of reviews (48,490) in google maps and I found many reviews about the disability toilet as one of the accessibility facilities in this mall.
I was so happy because some fellow from Tangerang Local Guides sharing their photos about accessibility facilities in their surrounding area to me because when they find the sign of accessibility, they said they remember me and share it with me. This is good, increasing the awareness among local guides, however, this is not enough.
Therefore, I always encouraged everyone to do a review in the google maps with more details and include accessibility information. Then this will be more useful, helping to create the movement and will have an impact on society.
Thanks for all local guides that raised some questions and gave the comments during this session, as details below:
- @Anil6969 : was asking about the training sign languages that Sunyi was conducted for the deaf and the interesting point that anil was asking Mario to join as a local guides LOL
- @Shreeya_99 , what is the inspiration for developing this business and the possibility of expanding this business to India and also about the usage of the wheelchair into the mosque
- @RosyKohli shared that there was a similar cafe just open in Mumbai, India, and proposed to open in India. hurdles about these special people who work for Sunyi?
- Kashif: shared there is a similar cafe too in Karachi, Pakistan and shared his interest in accessibility
- Beatrice, a friend of Mario from New Zealand: asking how to contribute and help to Sunyi just being a customer
- @Ewaade_3A : appreciated this accessibility meet up and especially the review about the mosque. And of course, appreciated what Mario has been done
- @indahnuria : proposed to plan a face to face meet up in Sunyi
- @TravellerG , Jane, @Arati appreciated about this meetup and also Mario
And many appreciations coming from other local guides in the chatbox too like, Emeka**, Sagir, Radja, Nita, Yulia, and Jeane** and so on**. Jeane** shared that one of the Burger King restaurant in Bali, the employees are special for those who can’t hear and talk. Jeane has interest about accessibility, she
attended sign language course named Bisindoa also in Bali.
Local Guides Support Accessibility
Before ending the last session, we take a group photo and showed our support about Accessibility.
Thanks, everyone for sharing your support, Indah appreciates your support in a creative way which writing the support in the used receipt since Indah was doing the shopping. Just like Amel, who is doing another thing outside but shared her support writing in the parking receipt LOL … 
And these are the support from other local guides too, thanks guys!
For more details, you can find:
- Audio recorded on:
- Many other photos also the slides presentation are here and please feel free to add also
Thanks again everyone for attending this Meet-Up and also support the accessibility.
also for sharing your photos about accessibility from your areas.
I was so busy with the works lately.