The Be. Institute Celebrates 10 Years Of Accessibility Transformations In Aotearoa
The Be. Institute was established ten years ago with the goal of making Aotearoa the most accessible nation in the world. Find out what impact has been achieved over the past decade.
Ten years ago, the Be. Institute was established in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup 2011 to help make New Zealand as accessible as possible to the 1 in 4 Kiwis living with access needs as well as the thousands of access tourists that would be visiting our shores.
An holistic initiative working with businesses, organisations, communities, and access citizens themselves, the Be. Institute has rolled out a number of programmes over the past decade to address issues of inaccessibility across all areas of life from leisure and tourism, meaningful employment opportunities, leadership development, public attitudes and perceptions of accessibility and access innovation.
The Be. Institute operates through two core organisations - Be. Lab, which addresses the accessibility issues of today, and the Global Centre of Possibility, designed to encourage and protect access innovation into the future.
We are thrilled to be celebrating a decade of social change and acknowledge the huge number of supporters, backers and participants in the Be. community that have enabled us to deliver this positive social impact to New Zealand society.
Some highlights of our collective impact include:
A network of 150 access leaders who have completed our Be. Leadership programme and continue to champion accessibility in their communities across New Zealand
800+ businesses who have implemented over 4,000 improvements to their places, spaces and events making them more accessible to all
232 access citizens placed into meaningful employment opportunities either through high quality internships or permanent employment
The establishment of the world’s first Centre of Possibility, dedicated to putting accessibility at the forefront of design and innovation and supporting access entrepreneurs to flourish
Over 20 million views of accessibility stories in the media – transforming perceptions and beliefs of the value of access citizens in our society