Stories & Experiences to Promote Change
What’s a story and why is it important? I believe a story is an opportunity for someone to provide a personal account of what he or she has experienced in a way that is meaningful. Storytelling is a way to communicate personal convictions or hardships to potentially transform any audience. Stories can be used as a way to promote change for the greater good.
Stories that Changed my Perspective
I was a member of an organization called Best Buddies International in college; their Spread the Word to End the Word campaign has been something that has stuck with me through the years. Personal stories from this campaign really helped transform my thinking.
The Spread the Word to End the Word campaign was initiated to encourage people to pledge to use more inclusive language for individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental delay (ID/DD). This campaign challenges people to stop using the word “retard” or “retarded” to describe a person. Their efforts are a way of ensuring that no individual feels excluded or is categorized negatively from the rest of the world.
“Growing up as the sister and sibling carer to Nathan, who is profoundly learning disabled, the use of this word has deeply hurt me since my childhood.”
-Sara Mae
How Does This Relate to Universal Design?
Universal design is becoming a popular design process to increase inclusion in our communities, but in order for it to work, people have to understand why it’s important, and be aware of the social issues that can change. While the design of things in our communities is important, so are our attitudes toward people. The two have to go hand-in-hand.
The Spread the Word to End the Word campaign uses personal testimonies as a way to spread awareness about the derogatory connotation of the use of the R-word. Now, hundreds of thousands of individuals are making a pledge to eliminate the word from their vocabulary.
“Having Down Syndrome is part of me. What makes me feel bad in life is when people say the ‘R-word.’ It hurts so many people who are born with or without a disability but now we can make a change in our lives the way we know it.”
-Samuel Piazza
While this campaign focused on the ID/DD population, universal design is a concept that has benefit for the entire population. There’s a lot to learn about, but awareness can increase by capturing the heartstrings of an audience through stories.
Stories for Awareness
I’m helping with an awareness campaign at The Universal Design Project, and part of what we’re working on is telling other people’s stories. Here are a couple quotes from Bonnie Downey’s story that resonated with me:
“I don’t think that every single person understands what it’s like. I didn’t; clearly didn’t understand what it’s like to be in a wheelchair. Even if it’s part-time, it’s been a hard pill to swallow. I think that educating people would be helpful.”
Educating people about things that aren’t personally experienced is difficult. But hearing their stories can help us learn…
“When you come upon someone with a disability or someone is even temporarily disabled, recognize maybe who they are and get to know them as a person, because it’s not always comfortable for someone who likes to be independent to have all that help; and then there’s other people who probably love to have that help; getting to know the people and recognizing their needs is important.”
Stories for Change
I find it difficult to dismiss the idea of trying to make our communities more inclusive after hearing some of these testimonies. All individuals, with or without disabilities, should be able to interact and be successful in their own homes to promote an increased quality of life.
The Spread the Word to End the Word campaign has successfully made strides in the plight to simply stop using a derogatory word, and a big part of the success came from stories. If we listen to the stories of others, we’ll start to learn about other incredible opportunities to improve people’s lives.
It seems like universal design should be simple and common sense, but it’s not, which is why creating awareness of the need for it is important. When we see people’s lives through a different lens than our own, that can be a powerful force to transform our thinking and catalyze change.
