Advocacy- Don’t stay QUIET!!! Using your voice to make change for your life or our community

This is a podcast where people with disabilities share knowledge, understanding, and real-life experiences about how they had advocated when they dealt with barriers and issues that made living life difficult…if you have problems or barriers and are a person with a disability, tune in to learn how to combat what’s bugging you. We want to thank ECI staff and participants who took the time to share real-life examples of what advocacy is and what it means to them 

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This is the what's bugging you podcast where people with disabilities share examples of advocacy. They have used to deal with issues that made life hard. This episode will keep you buzzing with positive and better opportunities and learn more about how to do life. Stay tuned. Thank you for joining the independent center podcast. Today the podcast is presented to you by ECI, staff and participant on what's bugging you. The Independent Center is a nonprofit organization. We serve the community with people who have a disability. For more information, you can reach the independent center on our website and our Facebook page at www dot E-N-D-E-P-E-N D E N C E dot or O R G or you can go on our Facebook page at Endependence Center what does advocacy mean to you? To me advocacy means not keeping silent. It means standing up for what you believe in and how you feel you should be treated Seen as a person and a person with a disability. It means, helping myself and others to get what we need out of life. Taking care of your responsibilities so that you are okay. Advocacy means to me that I can do a lot in my life. Advocacy means to me, it means fighting for your rights. Why did you become an advocate? Communication is the key. Making sure people understand me and by learning to write HRT and be in the community will show that people live life just like me. I learned to become an advocate from my peers at the Independence center. I became an advocate because, working with the Center for Independent Living, it taught me how to advocate for myself. Especially being a person with a disability, living in a nursing facility, how to transition back into the community. some resources I didn't know about and things I didn't know about. So I had to advocate and put my best foot forward to get out of these situations. Because I love helping people, and it's my gift. I became an advocate because as a person with a disability, and whom I watched advocate for herself, I wanted to be an example of that. I wanted to advocate for myself, so that I could be seen as not just a blind person or a blind woman, but a person, or just a woman. And I also advocate for other people with disabilities that struggle with To understand that they have the right to stand up and voice how they feel when they're being judged or discriminated against. What things have you had? To advocate for yourself about. The thing that I remember advocating about is the ticket booth for the Spirit of Norfolk. Because people with disabilities, especially people in wheelchairs, could not go up to get their own tickets. We had to get, enabled by the person to get our tickets when we got, when we wanted to go on the Spirit of Nufflug. So we advocated to, for people with disabilities, specifically those in wheelchairs, can go up to the ticket booth and retrieve our own tickets. I had to advocate for myself to get a stopper for my door. Why was the stopper important? I don't know. Because I have a wheelchair. And what did the stopper allow you to do? To go straight inside my apartment. The first time that I had to advocate for myself was advocating to my family to let them know that I was losing my eyesight and that I was going to be doing things differently. They had trouble accepting it, but I just had to convince them and let them know that I was still me and to treat me the same and not differently or wrong. My health, education, housing, and disability. Do you feel like if you didn't advocate, people would have given you what you needed in life? No, they kept telling me I didn't need it, and I had to fight to get it. Well, my earliest memory of advocating is When I first started high school, I was made by my mom to be the one to set up a meeting with my teachers a week or two before school so that I can be the one to sit down with them and tell them what I need from them so that I can Get the same education as everyone else. I sat and I would tell them how I would need my tests, so that I could take the tests. if they need to write something on the board, they're gonna have to read it, because I can't read it myself. They have to read it so that I can take it. And I would ask them how often do they use projectors or charts so that I can get those in a braille format so that I can use, the same formats and pictures. So I advocated for my education. that was the first thing that I ever advocated for in my life. I think if you hadn't talked to your teachers. They would have understood what it meant to make sure that you had access to the material? If I hadn't spoken to them, I think that they wouldn't. I think that they would have seen me as a student and I was a blind student, but I think that they probably wouldn't have known how to help me. I think that they probably wouldn't have known how to give me the materials that I needed or, you know, or some of them probably wouldn't have even known how to ask me. How did you learn to be an advocate? I learned to be an advocate at an early age. My grandfather taught me how to be an advocate when he helped people and young men transition from the institution out into the public. And then he developed MS and my mom had a stroke. I learned early that they would have to do things differently. But I also had to speak up for them when I would travel with them and help people understand that they were still human beings and people and that they were capable of doing anything that they put their mind to. I learned to be an advocate because back in 2001 I was a gunshot victim and I had a spinal cord injury and it left me in a wheelchair. So, as time progresses, I got connected to the Endependence Center back in 2008. They taught me how to advocate for myself and do different things. At first, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what avenues to take and things like that. And then in 2011, I was offered an employment job here at ECI. And I, Took the job and I started working from 2011 to present to 2024. I'm still advocating for myself to be better and, I did advocate for myself. one reason. I did advocate for myself when I needed a curb cut in my apartment complex, so I had to, write an email and stating the reason why I needed a curb cut to get up and down my sidewalk. I learned how to be an advocate from my mom. My mom is also blind. And, from a child, I watched my mom advocate for equality in every aspect of life, be it, going shopping, using transportation, Even in her marriage, I, I saw her advocate to be treated, you know, not like she can't see as a woman, but just treat her like a woman, Um, so yeah, I, I learned from my mom. My mom never let anyone get the best of her. Why is it important to advocate? Because I have a voice and I can communicate. Communication is powerful and it makes change. It is a core value to be able to communicate Tag, you're it and I want to be tagged to be it. Also, I want to live a life. It makes me feel happy so that the people can get the things that they need and that they want and they deserve to have out of life to enjoy their life. To get our voices heard because, since I had my spinal cord injury, I didn't know some resources or what's going on. So I had to advocate to be better, to live independently on my own. It's good to advocate. Because it's good to have a voice for yourself. It's important to advocate in order to impact your disability community with change. Change will never happen if people don't understand that there is a need. advocating is the first step of identifying the need and then coming up with the resources and a solution. For me, it's important to advocate because a closed mouth doesn't get fed. If you don't ask the right questions, or let people know what they're saying is wrong or how they're treating you is wrong, then they won't know. So I feel like that's why advocating is important. How do you know when to advocate? When your independence is in question by other people. When I'm up against something that I know that is right and that I'm supposed to have or someone's supposed to have because of their disability. When you see something wrong, it could be in the community, it could be anywhere you go, it could be a ball game, it could be restaurants, it could be, concerts, anywhere you feel like if something's not accessible for a person with a, mobility disability, then you raise the issue. I know when to advocate, when I'm in a situation, when I'm, uncomfortable. I know when to advocate if my safety or livelihood is in jeopardy or, I feel endangered. I know when to advocate when I feel like I'm being wronged and I have to speak up and let them know that I know that You're not giving me the same treatment that you would give someone else. You know when to advocate when the community at large and society label you a liability because of your disability or there are identifiable barriers that keep you from being included in your normal life routines. those barriers should not be in place. And all a person with a disability strives for is equality and inclusion. So that is the primary reason why you need to advocate. Remember that people with disabilities are people first and we're awesome.