Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is a day dedicated to sparking conversations, education, and hands-on action toward making the internet usable for people with disabilities.

GAAD is observed annually on the third Thursday of May. This year, it falls on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Rather than just raising awareness, our friends at Equalize Digital created the GAAD Pledge, a call to action where anyone and everyone can participate in making the web more accessible. Making a public commitment brings accountability; seeing all the other names and pledges showcases how much can be accomplished when we work together.

Speaking of working together…

Inspired by the Equalize Digital pledge, FocusWP will be hosting a special Accessibility Group Work Session, and you’re invited!

Whether you build websites, write content, or just care about making the web more inclusive, this casual virtual event is a chance to roll up your sleeves and do something to help improve accessibility on real websites.

What to Expect:

This isn’t a webinar. It’s a hands-on, come-as-you-are co-working session where we’ll work on accessibility-related tasks together, with support from accessibility expert Amber Hinds of Equalize Digital. She’ll be on hand to answer questions, demo tools (like screen readers), and help you grow your skills in real time.

Gen Herres, accessibility whiz, owner of Easy A11y Guide, master of “Ask me anything WordPress”, and weekly Focus Group regular, will also be on hand to help answer questions and share tips. She will teach us how to quickly audit a website for its overall accessibility with almost no prior experience.

We’ll kick things off with some brief tips and task ideas, then dive in! You can collaborate with others, ask questions, learn a new accessibility skill, or just quietly work on your own with the group chatter as background noise.

Not an Accessibility Pro? Not a Problem.

You don’t need to know how to code to participate! In fact, here are just a few beginner-friendly tasks you can help with:

• Captioning or reviewing video transcripts
• Writing or improving alt text for images
• Testing keyboard navigation
• Running and reviewing accessibility audits
• Checking color contrast
• Reviewing form labels or link text

We’ll have a shared task list, tips, and tools to get you started.

Why Participate?

According to the Global Accessibility Awareness Day website:

The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than One Billion people with disabilities/impairments.

Notice it’s for everyone, not just accessibility experts. This is a great opportunity to:

• Learn how to test accessibility on websites
• Ask questions about real-world scenarios and get expert answers
• Collaborate with the WordPress community
• Make a meaningful contribution, even if you’re new to accessibility

Register to Join Us

Please register for the group work session so we can send you the Zoom link, reminders, and any helpful prep tips before the event.

Bonus: Make the GAAD Pledge

We also encourage you to make the official GAAD pledge on Equalize Digital’s website to join thousands of others taking a stand for a more inclusive web.

See You There!

Bring a project, bring a friend, or just bring your curiosity. Whether you stay for 30 minutes or 3 hours, your participation matters. Let’s help make the web a more accessible place, and have some fun doing it!