Meet Kaylie - one of the Nova Scotians with a disability featured in the Access Includes Everyone accessibility awareness campaign advertisements. Kaylie shares her experience living with a disability - together, we can create some real change!

Video transcript: 

A woman walks stiffly towards a sofa chair in a darkened room and uses the arms of the chair to support her as she sits down.  

Kaylie: The goal is to make our world accessible.

Bold text fills the screen that reads, “Access is for everyone.” Lights turn on revealing two people using video equipment to interview Kaylie, a woman of African descent who has long hair. 

Kaylie: I mean, access is for everyone, right?

[Kaylie’s laughter]

Close-up of Kaylie’s face with her name in text beside her. 

Kaylie: My name is Kaylie Adamski. I, myself, have been living with a disability since birth: cerebral palsy. I need basically an aide to help me up any kind of steps, or I can’t go up steps without a railing because of my motor movements and my balance.

Kaylie walks down rows of bookshelves accessible to her at standing height in the bright Halifax Central Library.  

Kaylie: I do my best to not let it hold me back.

Kaylie, holding a book, lowers herself into a bright orange armchair in the library using the chair’s armrests.

Kaylie: Having an accessible world just makes things easier, but it also equalizes everything. 

Alternating close-up shots of Kaylie speaking in front of solid-coloured backgrounds, and Kaylie reading a book in her armchair at the Central Library. 

Kaylie: It’s a matter of like just sitting down and really thinking: if it was you or a loved one, what would you like to see? 

Kaylie: We want to break down those barriers of, you know, fearing what is different. Knowledge is power, so the more that we speak about it, we normalize, you know, disability and just making it socially acceptable – as it should be. 

Kaylie being interviewed on the video shoot set.

Kaylie: I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around people who have disabilities that they may not have intimate relationships or children, and that’s definitely not true. 

Kaylie, wearing a sweatshirt that says, “good vibes only,” uses a walker to move towards Josh, her eight-year-old son, in the Museum of Natural History. 

Kaylie watches as Josh peers into a rocky aquarium and points at something.

Josh: What is that? 

Alternating close-up shots of Kaylie and Kaylie and Josh exploring the museum. 

Kaylie: When I was pregnant there was a lot of people that said like, “Well how’s this going to work? Are you going to be okay?” And they were concerned and doubting, and my Mom was like, “No. You’ll be fine.” And I was. 

[Walker wheels rolling across the floor] 

Kaylie and Josh walk side-by-side through the museum while looking at an exhibit of a mastodon skeleton. Josh rests an arm on Kaylie’s walker, below one of her hands. 

Kaylie: For someone to succeed in life – in personal and professional [life] – as long as you have that support system of people who truly believe that you can do something – but not only believe you can do something but help you, give you the resources to achieve those goals and just to genuinely be a support – is what’s helped me to come so far. 

Kaylie and Josh walk through a different part of the museum where fish and whales hang from the ceiling. Kaylie points at something above them, off camera. 

Kaylie: Look at that up there, Josh.

Kaylie and Josh look closely at an exhibit of a shark’s skeletal jaws. Then they walk around the perimeter of a large suspended sphere, pointing at the map projected onto it. 

Kaylie: I’ve never liked to be treated differently, and I don’t think anybody does. I know I’m different, and I know I stand out, but at the end of the day I want to be just like, you know, everybody else.

[Walker wheels rolling over gravel]

Kaylie and Josh walk along a boardwalk in Point Pleasant Park beside the Halifax Harbour, then along a gravel trail. Josh is holding a bird feather and Kaylie is using her walker. 

Kaylie: My ideal future for someone with a disability? It would be to wake up in the morning and be able to do whatever you want to do and not have to assess the place, the environment, the situation at all. 

Kaylie and Josh sit on a bench, with Kaylie’s arm around Josh. They look out at a shipping container terminal in the harbour.

Kaylie: Just being comfortable with absolutely no worries. 

Kaylie smiles and rubs Josh’s back while he plays with his feather. Josh shows Kaylie a crab claw he has found. 

Kaylie: Because as long as people come together with a common cause, you know it can create some real change. We can only go up from here.

Close-up of Kaylie’s face as she laughs. White text appears beside her that reads, “Access includes.” This white text then turns black as Kaylie’s face disappears and is replaced by a solid white background. The word “everyone” appears in green following the words “access includes.” Text below reads, “Access includes everyone. Help make Nova Scotia more accessible. Accessible.NovaScotia.ca.” 

Government of Nova Scotia logo appears.