Online Information on Employment and Training Opportunities for Disabled People Mailing Lists, News and Chat Groups

Mailing Lists, Newsgroups and Chatrooms are great places to discuss all sorts of issues, exchange ideas, ask questions and hopefully get some answers. The links below are only a selection of the groups available, if you know of any groups that are particularly useful please contact the project. For more information please read the How-to section at the bottom of this page.

The Blindjob Mailing List is designed to discuss employment as it relates to blind people. Blind job seekers are encouraged to send "cover-letters" to the list indicating their job search. Potential employers of blind people are encouraged to submit job-postings the list is also designed to facilitate discussion relating to job accessibility.
Connections Disability: A list of e-mail discussion groups and newsgroups.
The Disability Careers Forum discusses issues related to employment for people with disabilities.
The Disabled-Talk list is an open forum for Macintosh users with disabilities to discuss solutions and share ideas for making computers more accessible.
The Dyslexia Mail Group is for the discussion of issues of particular concern to dyslexics.
The LIVING with PHYSICAL DisABILITIES Discussion is for people who face physical challenges, professionals, people from agencies, caregivers and anyone else who is interested.
uk.people.disability Newsgroup: The newsgroup has tried to make things as helpful as possible to VIPs (Visually Impaired People)

How to...

Mailing lists are groups of people exchanging emails around a common interest. Once you join the mailing list you will receive mail about the subject you and other people are interested in.

To join one of the many thousands of mailing lists you use your e-mail program to write to either the person who is organising the list or an automatic list server. The address you would use in this instance is different to the one you will be using once you are actually participating in the e-mail discussion.

This is an important distinction: there is an address for joining and an address for posting contributions. It pays to be careful when starting out otherwise you could end up upsetting fellow subscribers.

There are different ways to subscribe to different lists - you may have to do a bit of research to find out exactly what is required. However, many of the automatic list servers are very similar in the way they work; to join the list start up your e-mail program, enter the list server address and type the word subscribe into the body of the message.

Unfortunately many mailing lists not meant for the general public. It's probably a good idea therefore to make some enquiries before trying to subscribe. Usually you can do this by putting the word info and then the name of the list in the message of your e-mail - you will get back information about that particular list.

Once you have subscribed to a list make sure to read the welcome message you receive because it includes all the important information you need and some rules specific to this mailing list. It is also a good idea just to read the posting for a few weeks (which is called 'lurking') to get an idea of the local rules, regulation and etiquette.

(Information about News- and Chatgroups to follow soon)

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