Last year cbm Canada made a decision to include people with disabilities in our planning and implementation. We have also tried very hard to recruit and hire staff who are skilled and fully capable, and may also have a disability. This is important to us – we need to be accountable to people with disabilities in all we say and do.
Let me give you an example of how this can work.
My last blog was on couples with disabilities who have children. In my first draft of that blog I used the phrase …”couples who have an illness, like Cerebral Palsy….” One of our staff persons, Jaymie, read this. She wrote me an email about my blog saying among other things:
“In my opinion you could have left out the word ‘illness’ because I believe the word sort of has a negative connotation and feel that it implies the need to be taking care of or that one is incapable. It reinforces this preconceived social idea that all people with disabilities are weak and need to be cared for…”
This is why we need to hear from people with disabilities. Yes, Jaymie has a disability and was able to tell me what my words sounded like through her life lens. It helped me to understand better and to communicate better.
Those of you who follow cbm Canada hear us often speak about disability. The more I see and visit with people around the world who we do say have a “disability”, I think of ability.
You can look at anything from different angles.
Certainly we do work with people with medical impairments – be it disease, a twisted foot, or cataract. The barriers these people do feel in life – their disability – is a combination of the impairment and the norms of society. The disability of not being able to read, for example, because of blindness is “cured” when books and web sites are in digital form which allows it to be audibly read. Our job is not about disability per se, but about ability. We celebrate ability, promote ability, work through medical interventions and with communities to turn the disability to ability. I wonder if we should stop talking about disability all together, and speak of ability.
This is why an article that I received yesterday is so interesting. It concerns parents with Cerebral Palsy, who have children. There is one case in Toronto that is at the forefront of this issue, but the article does a great job of not focussing on one couple, but drawing the issue out further. At the core is society definitions of ability and disability. At the core is our definition of normal. At the core is a celebration of ability over disability – couples who refused to let society’s imposed disabilities stop their ability to have a family of their choice.
In my last post I spoke about the amazing win by Josh Cassidy in the Boston Marathon this year and how pleased I was that the media in Canada covered this so well. I wanted to first congratulate Josh before making my next point – because nothing I say here should take away from Josh’s great achievement.
I recently returned from Uganda. While there I met a number of families with children with disabilities. I was so lucky to spend some time with these families and get to know them a little bit. The one family consisted of a grandmother looking after her mother and aunt, along with 5 orphaned grandchildren. The oldest grandchild had a significant disability and was in our program. I know that Josh and other athletes have courage, dedication, drive, courage, and talent. What struck me was the courage, dedication, drive, courage and talent of these children and their grandmothers in places like Uganda. Every day is a marathon – a marathon of finding food, looking for hope, getting to school, keeping the place clean, and wondering about the future.
Please don’t misunderstand me – Josh Cassidy’s win in Boston is a testament to his dedication and courage, and I am thrilled he is getting good press coverage. I just wish that these grandmothers and children in Uganda, who quietly toil away with their own dedication and courage would get the recognition that they deserve.
Josh Cassidy won the Boston Marathon last Monday. Josh broke the world’s record for a marathon in a wheel chair. What a huge accomplishment! Here is a video of Josh training – amazing how fast he is going. Congratulations Josh!
Two things struck me with Josh’s win. I will give one of those today and then give the other one in my next post.
I was so pleased to see how the Canadian media covered Josh’s win. For too long the media has only focussed on the winners who are perceived as “normal”. It is as if the wheel chair athletes do not have to have the same dedication, hard work, sacrifice, courage, and talent as those who do not have a disability. When it was reported on in the past, it was always done with a caveat – some seen as less valued. Not this year and with Josh. I hope it is not simply because he is a Canadian. I hope that this is because society attitudes have changed.
In my next post I will reflect a bit on another thing that stuck me upon watching the news of Josh’s win.
Today was a hot, humid and emotionally draining day.
Our last day on the build site, and the humidex was well over 40, with absolutely no breeze. Even when we managed to find shade, we could still feel the heat pounding down on us. It’s the first time in my life I can ever remember feeling like my feet were on fire.
Nothing makes you feel as sore as manual labour, especially if you are used to working at a desk all day.
Today was our first day on the build site, and I don’t think very many of us, including myself, had any idea how hard it is to build a house from the ground up.
Flew from Lilongwe, Malawi on Friday to Durban, South Africa today via Johannesburg. I am now switching gears in the heart of southern Africa. I am going from visiting cbm funded work in Swaziland and Malawi to participating on a joint cbm Canada/Habitat Canada build in Kwa Zulu Natal.
I learned the true value of volunteers today. Not that I ever thought it wasn’t valuable before, but today it took on a much deeper meaning for me.
We headed to the bush to see an eye-screening clinic. And when I say we drove into the bush, I mean we drove into the bush. We quite literally just turned off the paved road onto a dirt path that wasn’t much wider than a bike path. The brush on either side of us was higher than the car and the road was so twisting and turning that if the car ahead got more than 10 feet ahead, it was gone and we couldn’t see it anymore.
