After you learn about some outrageous mistreatment of people with disabilities in one of my monthly Metroland Media columns or in a news report, what is your initial reaction?

Many understandably react by feeling astonished and appalled that these many preventable disability barriers still face us in 2025.

Add to that real frustration if you feel you can't do anything about this injustice.

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Yet you can do something, even if you have no professional advocacy training, have very little free time, and don't even know where to start.

You need two things: practical action tips for busy people and a genuine feeling that you can make a difference.

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To deliver those two things to you, I have just launched a new podcast.

It's called "Disability Rights, and Wrongs: The David Lepodcast." You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, such as Apple Music, and Accessible Media Inc. will provide a transcript. A new episode will drop every three weeks.

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This podcast gives practical tips on how to advocate for equality, accessibility and full participation for people with all kinds of disabilities.

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You'll hear stories from the front lines. Our guests will offer insights and innovative ideas from a wide range of perspectives. I will draw on decades of disability advocacy.

Everyone can be a barrier-buster.

Guests on the podcast will tell stories that include ready-to-use action tips. These will be helpful for anyone interested in any kind of social justice advocacy, not only issues that confront people with disabilities.

The first episode is now available for download. In it, my clever and creative producer Jacob Shymanski interviews me about my rather unbelievable multi-year legal battle from 1994 to 2007 to force the Toronto Transit Commission to audibly announce in a consistent and reliable way all subway, bus and streetcar stops so that blind passengers, like me, can know when we've arrived at our desired stop.

Many find it unbelievable that TTC fought so long and hard against me over this.

I encourage you to search for and subscribe to this free podcast on your smartphone on Apple Music or computer wherever you get your podcasts.

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If you haven't before listened to podcasts and don't know how to find them on a smartphone, just ask the Amazon Echo (Alexa) to play the Disability Rights, and Wrongs podcast.

I hope you will find this podcast worth a listen, whether you have a disability, or you have a friend or family member who has a disability, or you are potentially going to get a disability as you age. Face it -- that includes everyone!

This podcast, like this column, aims to interest anyone who'd like to know about advocacy battles that are going on, often far from the headlines, that touch the lives of millions.

My goal is to offer listeners a wide range of perspectives and stories you may find simply jaw-dropping at times, whether the disability barriers arise in our school system, our health care system, our public transit, or so many other aspects of life that we'd all wish we could take for granted.

Two messages will spring from these podcasts.

First, when people with disabilities and their allies advocate to tear down disability barriers, the resistance they at times run-up against makes it feel like they have no hope. However, hope is not something you "have." Hope is something we create.

Second, wherever we go, whatever we do, there's always a way we can help the cause. I encourage everyone to be a barrier-buster. Give it a listen, and you can learn from wonderful people who have done it incredibly well.

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