At Lingraphica, it is our genuine privilege to serve many speech-language communities. One of our proudest achievements is Virtual Connections — our free online aphasia support group. These daily online meetups for people with aphasia and their families provide a unique place to connect, learn, and grow.
Hundreds of individuals have taken part in Virtual Connections, all with the opportunity to choose from unique sessions. Session topics vary greatly, from music therapy and book club to caregiver tips and overcoming fatigue, and much more.
One of our recent additions to the schedule is a session called Community Inclusion. In this session, we talk about how we can help people with aphasia feel more included, rather than excluded, in their communities. We offer some tips, review your rights, and have an active discussion group.
Inclusion is important to Lingraphica. From how we build our products to how we assemble as a team, we take intentional steps to consider inclusion. We’re proud of the strides we’ve taken recently, but sometimes we fall short. When we hosted our last Community Inclusion meeting, we inadvertently excluded members of our aphasia community by hosting it on September 16 — the final day of Yom Kippur. This unfortunate oversight meant that some Jewish members of our community would be unable to attend the session.
Lingraphica offers a number of sessions throughout the year, including on days that fall on holidays for various cultures. We certainly consider these days while building our schedule, and prioritize sessions on those days accordingly. When it comes to a session on inclusion, it should have been prioritized differently and scheduled on a day without any obvious conflicts, even though we planned to host the same session again in October. We regret the error, and appreciate the learning opportunity to provide and inclusive experience for our community.
The next Community Inclusion session takes place on Friday, October 8, 5:00 p.m. ET.
