#technically the charity doesn't get money from workshops because tutors are freelancers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

watches-and-windchimes · 2 years ago

Text

Once again thinking about how much I hate the Makaton charity for creating a communication tool for disabled people and then keeping it behind a paywall

For full access to Makaton I'd need to do all four level workshops, which the charity advise tutors to charge £77 for each (some charge more than this), and a premium membership which is £100 per year (they used to have a standard membership but got rid of this for some reason)

So in total that's £408. For comparison, the most effective AAC app Proloquo2go is £250. This doesn't include any of the additional things like books or extra workshops

Also Makaton workshops are aimed at carers of disabled people and therefore are unlikely to be accessible to/relevent to the needs of disabled people taking the classes for ourselved

I will be continuing to pirate Makaton resources for the time being, and I encourage other learners to do the same

#maybe one of these days i could convince my uni disability services to host makaton workshops #i once emailed makaton asking what a disabled adult like myself was supposed to do #and their response was pretty much “cope”#actuallyautisitic #makaton #can you really call yourself a charity if the people you claim to be helping have to pay for your services #like at that point I'm pretty sure you're just a business #technically the charity doesn't get money from workshops because tutors are freelancers #they make money off courses for qualifying tutors #not really sure how i feel about abled/allistic tutors profiting off a basic access need but there we go #being unable to speak is genuinely one of the most isolating experiences i can think of and becky over here wants £300 to help me

2 notes · View notes