Personal Narrative: From Beach Gazelles

Mary Mcaleese, one of the former presidents of Ireland, works as a current affairs journalist who truly researches her topic. In fact, she once spent a day in a wheelchair in Dublin, one of the most unfriendly wheelchair cities in the world. She once said, “people with disabilities have abilities too” (Mcaleese). Many people throughout the world develop stereotypes, and those who have disabilities make up a great number of these stereotypes. These people need to understand that their body has limits, but their mind does not.

In our society, people with and without disabilities are granted rights. Throughout history, disabled people weren’t granted as many rights as people without disabilities. Disability rights have expanded greatly since the 1800s where they were forced to be put in institutions. Now, disabled people have many rights wherever they go and many people have impacted that change. Many concepts have been expanded greatly such as ramps, elevators, closed captioning, etc. to be able to support the people with

Ableism is the discrimination towards the disabled-bodied and favors the abled-bodied population; this is exemplified by many people and events. The first example is the Olympics; in Olympics, majority of the athletes are able, and they are very few disabled athletes who participate in the Olympics. In this example, Olympics focuses on having abled-bodied athletes to play in the games, but the disabled need to work hard to match the able-bodied athletes’ skills which only few disabled athletes can do it. Ableism is illustrated through the comparison of abled-bodied and disabled-bodied capabilities. In Canadian society, the disabled-bodied are not given chances to create awareness for themselves in different events which ranges from local events to international events.

Over 19.9% of our population has some type of a disability. An estimated 48.9 million people have a disability, and 24.1 million of those people live with a severe disability. We need to have a better understanding of those with disabilities, whether it be a visible or invisible disability, they way that they have been viewed in the past, or the everyday barriers that they come upon. Throughout history the treatment of the disabled has been rather cruel. According to an article from the Paul Burtner College of Dentistry, it stated “Institutions were built by state and local administrative agencies to house people with developmental disabilities.

It is not just in the United States though, Special Olympics reaches out to people around the world providing people with intellectual disabilities in more than 170 countries with the experience. The main goal of Special Olympics is to push for inclusion and acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities everywhere. Special Olympics hosts events such as the summer games, where they can participate in track and field events, along with unified sports teams, such as soccer. The unified teams bring people together and break down the barrier between stereotypes. However, Special Olympics goes way beyond just the sports.

That is exactly what the Special Olympics does in one of their videos (Advertisement 6). Several athletes are shown sprinting, diving, and flipping. Then their faces are shown. They expose these amazing talents of the athletes and embrace their disabilities. In reality these athletes are just as talented as every other

And a disabled person’s ambition is like all other human beings, the looks of pity and compassion negatively affect that ambition. People should embrace the disabled person and give them a helping hand, and they should have laws, which defend their rights, which should be respected. However, most societies do not have laws that ensure an equal life for the disabled population. It is a shame that the rights of the disabled people has turned many times to mere slogans.

Today people try to help disabled people by having elevators in public places, closer parkings, wheelchair ramps and much more. But in my opinion cars are not fully developed yet. For example today's cars can not provide transportation to any blind people, which means if a blind person today would like to drive his car, he can not do it by himself. Not just blind people experience this problem. Other people that do not have hands or legs can not steer the steering wheel or push the gas peddle.

Easter Seals helps those with disabilities and their families. They have people at Easter Seals for services. They give the kids and adults a place to learn everything that we have learned in school but at their own paste. They have therapist and the

Susan speaks about how important it is for everyone, not just the disabled, to figure out what their true strengths are and to use those strengths to their advantage at all times. She mentions how even though she is visually impaired she is able to process extreme volumes of information quickly and to” ‘see’ what other people don’t” (Robinson, 2016). The main point I found important from her speech is when she says “I hate the word disabled when its used to describe people. It detonates a mindset of less-than that disregards capacity, ability and potential.”

Persons with a disability have implications of access, promoting social inclusion through technologies, employment as well as the justice system. However there are limitations and so social inclusion can be further promoted. At a micro level of society, there are implications of access through technologies to allow social inclusion by providing equipment for persons with a disability. This can help persons with a disability participate in activities that they may be limited to. For example, the Oasis Aquatic and Leisure Centre raised approximately $4000 for the implementation of technologies in the centre, for persons with a disability.

Reports online mentioned that 87% of people think that disabled people should be treated equally. The people who opposed this statement felt that the disabled use their disability as a free ride to an easy life. Most of my friends mentioned that their parents would object them to befriend those with disabilities as they feel that they would affect their well being and exam results . Albeit disappointed, I knew that it was an existing issue. I feel that being disabled is neither especially cursed nor especially blessed .

On Saturday, September 9th, I went to the Enabling Aquatics session at the YMCA in Santa Rosa. I went from 10:15 to 12:40.     When I first got to the YMCA I met up with the main coordinator, Kelly, who gave us a tour of the YMCA on where to go and where to sign in when we first arrive. We got in our bathing suits and then we went into the therapy pool (which is a 4 feet deep and 95 degrees), filled with volunteers and students who had disabilities which ranged from autism to cerebral palsy to someone with physical deficiencies. I have worked with children who had disabilities in the past but I haven’t  worked as much with adults.

The change from an institutional setting to a more community based setting shows a change in the attitude and believe about individuals with disabilities. Since their emancipation from institutions more than 40 years ago, the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities to participate in society have been increased with opportunities for full inclusion. The concept of inclusion encompasses both acceptance and respect. Children and adults are at risk of experiencing social exclusion and discrimination associated with their disability. While physical inclusion through accessibility change occurs, there is a lack of “feeling” a part of the community, which has some individuals with disabilities calling to action the need for social emotional inclusion.

Being taught the proper way to speak about disabilities really helps, I am now trying to speak in “ Person first” so as not to discriminate or place a stigma upon a person’s shoulders. When I eventually become a teacher all the new information I learned about diversity and disabilities in SED 125 such as knowing that not all children learn the same way or that some children may have a bigger struggle than others, and how to build healthy positive relationships with my future student. I will try to apply all the new information to my classroom