Photosymbols are now very popular in Australia, so we caught up with an organisation who have been using them for years - the Self Advocacy Resource Unit (SARU) in Melbourne. They work with over 20 self advocacy groups across Victoria state. Here’s what they had to tell us.

Cameron - Rainbow Rights Self Advocacy Group

Photosymbols make it easy because if people have got trouble reading, you’ve got a picture or symbol next to it. They can identify what the picture is to what the words mean.

My group Rainbow Rights use them. I like the look of the Photosymbols. They represent real people and are not like cartoons, yeah, they represent real people with disabilities.

Having Photosymbols for free means that we can do our work without having to worry about paying for the symbols so we can focus on the really important thing of getting the really important messages out to our group. If we had to pay for the symbols, it would have have meant we had less ways to get our message out.

Amanda – Raising Our Voices

As the saying goes, a picture tells every story so to speak. If you can’t read, the picture gives the person an idea about what is happening.  It’s good to have the pictures on it. Groups use them and new groups are learning how to use them.

Colin – Reinforce Self Advocacy Group

People must be able to see the pictures and to know what it is. So, they know or they can guess that what they are going to be talking about is someone in a wheelchair or what’s happening to people in wheelchairs.

If someone gave me a text with no Photosymbols I would ask “Why are there are no symbols?” The Photosymbols are there to tell us what we are going to talk about.  When we meet with governments the papers have no pictures. We need to have Photosymbols and pictures to match the words.

A big thank you to Photosymbols from the Self Advocacy Groups and the Self Advocacy Resource Unit