Able-bodied Disabled December 3rd is the International People with Disabilities Day. I recently attended a seminar related to the topic of so-called disabilities. The participants were challenged to wrestle with three questions: 1) What is Disability?, 2) What is Ability?, and 3) What is normal?. It was such a thought-provoking discussion. At the end of the debate I was convinced that there is no such thing as a disabled person. Given a specific goal to be accomplished, each of us may have disabilities, each of us may have special abilities and its perfectly normal to have such abilities and disabilities. We all have our unique set of challenges that we need to overcome to accomplish goals in our life, and often times we need help from the society and fellow human beings to get through those challenges. The world is built by us so-called able-bodied people, and sometime it makes it challenging for others who have a different set physical or mental attributes than most of us. That doesn’t make them disabled. Such individuals have a right to expect that their special needs be fulfilled so they can fully and productively participate in the social activities in this world weve built around us. We as a society need to hold each others hands and provide that help, whether the need is temporary or permanent; physical or mental. When innovation, technology and compassion come together there are hardly any special needs that cannot be fulfilled. The last thing those with a different set of physical or mental attributes than most need is pity. They need assistance just as any one of us needs assistance to get through challenges in our lives. OK, now I’ll get off the soapbox. I came across this interesting video (see the link below) that shows how so called able-bodied people became disabled in a town built by people in wheel-chairs. I urge you to spend just 84 seconds of your time to watch video. It may change your perspective just as it did mine. Heres wishing everyone a very healthy, productive and normal life. Lets all celebrate the International People with Disabilities Day. If it were up to me I would rename it as Normal People Day. With over a billion people around the world with disabilities, it has to be normal. Video link: https://m.youtube/watch?v=9s3NZaLhcc4 -Vishvas
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 02:07:00 +0000
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