Picture this. A young journalist shuffling through the crowded hallways of the United Nations building looking for willing subjects. There's a woman she's seen before.

"Excuse me," she says. "Can I ask you a question? Have you ever benefitted from the advancements made by people with disabilities? The woman pauses, then stammers and looks surprised, "What do you mean?"

What I had been thinking about was how we, as people without disabilities, have benefitted from the gains made by the advocacy work of people with disabilities. After an interview with Catherine Boldt, a member of the official Canadian delegation to the Earth Summit + 5 and a woman with a disability, I began to see this as an issue.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that many of the people I stopped to interview hadn't considered the question because I hadn't either before I met Catherine.

Playing devil's advocate earlier that morning, I asked Catherine what her response was to people who said that the UN was overburdened and could not keep "including" everyone (everyone meaning people with all sorts of disabilities). She looked me straight in the eye and said, "If I lobby to make access easier for me... if I lobby for the office of the High Commissionner to have a wheelchair ramp, it benefits me, it benefits mothers with children and strollers, delivery people, and so on."

Think about the difference the slopes down to the street at curbdsides have made in our lives. It's a simple change that people with mobility disability had to fight for and yet, rollerbladers, cyclists, and even those people with suitcases with wheels... We all are benefitting without thought for who fought for this perk.

"It's not something that you think about everyday, which is unfortunate. When you don't have a disability, you take for granted your health and physical state. It's something I haven't thought about," says Katie, a young photographer for the Earth Times, an independent international newspaper.

Katie was not the only one who hadn't addressed the issue. But others were quick to form a response on the spot. Laura Ivers, representing the World Environment Centre in New York City said that, "Even as a woman... and as a person on the planet, people with disabilities have helped me in the sense of broadening what peoples' concepts are of what people are capable of, or how they think of the needs of other people in terms of changing facilities... it increases open-mindedness to integrating people into a process, whether negotiations like this one or to a workplace or to civil society in general."

Debra Senior from Canada's Youth Action Network also spoke about how the advocacy work of people with disabilities helped her become more accepting for difference and diversity. "My basic instinct is to think of those people (with disabilities) as separate from myself. If they've made advances to integrate into society, then I tend not to see them as separate from myself and part of my everyday life." Five or ten years ago, Debra wouldn't have had such insight, but as she says, with the mainstreaming of ramps and other necessities, she no longer thinks that, "they need their own separate system because they are different."

But there is another side that makes this story so important. People with disabilities have achieved important gains necessary for their quality of life. These same gains have meant extra benefits for many of us without disabilities. Yet, according to Catherine Boldt, the UN system is decreasing its responsibility and committment to accessibility issues in its own backyard.

"Five years ago there was more activity in the disability community in terms of the environment... now the UN only has one person with disability as a portfolio and it is a minor one in the social policy branch," she explains. "Brazil, (at the original summit) brought forty people with disabilities on their delegation. Here, I am it."

Since Boldt helped organize a delegation to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, she has the ability to assess the tangible progress made by the United Nations in the last half-decade. She adds that the people within the UN system permanently would also say that the United Nations does not mandate itself to be completely wheelchair accessible. The grab-bars in the bathrooms that many people depend on are sometimes not there. "If the elevator operator is gone, we sometimes cannot get to the next floor," Catherine explained.

But the UN's failure to live up to the declarations and documents, like the Platform for People with disabilities, does not end with only physical disabilities. One needs to simply spend one day at a United Nations conference to grasp the magnitude of how much paper is actually produced, disseminated and reproduced.

The problem here is not just about the hypocrisy that such paper over-production presents to an environmental conference, but that it also limits access of such printed material to people who are visually impaired, those who are illiterate and those whose first langauge is not English. Yes, the UN operates in six official languages, but often times reality means that most documents are English-only.

"Little things like making audio copies of the documents," Boldt suggests, would greatly improve accessibility for a wide range of people and be cost efficient. It's really easy for volunteers to assist in that because it is finite. The UN can pass it off. Duplicating is $1 to pennies. You can access so many others... even local radio stations can have access."

The United Nations is an organization built on the principle of "we the people." (If you ever get a chance, check out the beginning of the UN Charter.) Unfortunately, the UN system hasn't been very "we" or inclusive. It needs to be challenged to adhere to the principles it was founded on.

Because of this lapse and lack of adherence to its founding principles of equality, in the end it is the UN who is losing out. "One reason I can be successful in the international arena is because I don't use a wheelchair or have a sensory disability," says Catherine.

Just think of all the brilliant people with disabilities that could change the world, but can't because they can't even make it in the front door.