Oct 27, 2009
Chapter advocates to check polling site accessibility with CIDNY on Election Day
New York, NY – Advocates from the New York City - Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society will partner with the Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY (CIDNY) on Tuesday, November 3, Election Day to evaluate and report on the accessibility of various polling sites in Manhattan. CIDNY has conducted the Poll Site Accessibility Project since 2003 and, in those six years, has visited 309 polling sites in Manhattan and Queens, their catchment area.
The chapter has joined CIDNY for the past five years with a cohort of volunteers who have completed the training necessary to properly evaluate the sites. Results of previous surveys are available here: http://www.cidny.org/cidnyweb/npo.jsp?pg=detail31&tab=Poll%20Site%20Accessibility
The chapter’s advocacy efforts involve influencing the public and private sector to provide results for people living with multiple sclerosis and their families. Issues include those pertaining to people with chronic illnesses or disabilities, access to health care and quality health insurance, prescription drug coverage, discrimination, housing, transportation, and accessibility. For more information on the chapter’s advocacy program, click here .
About the New York City – Southern New York Chapter
The New York City – Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society is committed to helping the nearly 10,000 people affected by multiple sclerosis in the five boroughs and Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Putnam, Orange and Sullivan counties continue moving their lives forward. The chapter raises funds locally to support the Society’s critical research initiatives and to provide hundreds of comprehensive support services and educational programs for people living with MS, their family and friends. Visit www.MSnyc.org for more information.
About the National Multiple Sclerosis Society
MS stops people from moving. The National MS Society exists to make sure it doesn’t. We help each person address the challenges of living with MS. In 2008 alone, through our national office and 50 state network of chapters, we devoted over $148 million to programs that enhanced more than one million lives. To move us closer to a world free of MS, the Society also invested over $45 million to support 440 research projects around the world.
About Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system, interrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body. Every hour in the United States, someone is newly diagnosed with MS. Symptoms range from reduced or lost mobility to numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are moving us closer to a world free of MS. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, with at least two to three times more women than men being diagnosed with the disease. MS affects more than 400,000 people in the U.S., and 2.1 million worldwide.
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