Jodie Vanderslot | Health Editor
Featured Image: Disability is a generalized term that carries a significant amount of weight—it is also frequently misunderstood and misrepresented. | Courtesy of Vestita
Dear Everybody,
This movement is about sharing the first-hand experiences and personal accounts of individuals with disabilities. This is a platform specifically created to amplify the voices of children and youth, so that they are able to educate people across Canada about the issues that limit or create obstacles in their lives—whether that be through their actual impairment, or the disability created by society.
“Disabled” is a general term used universally to classify all individuals with impairments. Those with disabilities are often generalized, grouped together, and subjected to stereotypes regardless of their personal experience with their own impairment. Dear Everybody works to target this stigma because experiences should not be predetermined by one’s impairment. It is a platform that seeks to empower these individuals to teach others by sharing their opinions, have their stories told, and needs met.
The Dear Everybody campaign officially launched on August 28, and began as a collaboration with the children and youth of Holland Bloorview, the Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. The campaign is a compilation of multiple open letters in different mediums, wherein individuals discuss issues such as employment, bullying, education, health care—and above all else, the stigma around disability.
Disability is a network of ideas and practices that can significantly limit those with impairments. This campaign is about changing the way we understand and respond to disability. Dear Everybody allows individuals without a disability to hear from those who do have one—and how, as a community, we can improve our means and methods of inclusion, integration, and participation for those with disabilities. In learning about the experiences and feelings of people with disabilities themselves, we can begin to make the necessary changes and overcome the attitudinal barriers, structural limitations, and politics that surround disability.
Disability is socially constructed and creates barriers within a society that those with impairments struggle to overcome. It requires both consistent physical and social integration into public areas, such as classrooms and workplaces, all across Canada. It is only through exposure and learning that the stigma around disability will be broken and ideologies are disproven.
This platform is intended to increase awareness and provide true accounts from people with disabilities, thereby reducing the stigma and normalizing accommodations—thus, creating a more inclusive environment across Canada. The letter, as well as the hospital’s anti-stigma position paper and resources, work to empower children and youth with disabilities. They are encouraged to share their perspectives and participate in a movement that works towards ending the stigma and adjusting the attitudes and behaviours of society. Disability is created when those with disabilities are given little consideration, are marginalized, and are excluded from participation within the rest of society as a result of physical, social, and attitudinal barriers.
Disability is often generalized as a single experience, however each individual’s story is unique—as is their condition, desires, and needs. Dear Everybody consists of personal stories, resources, videos, and ways for others to get involved. It is a five-year project designed to break barriers, address the misconceptions about living with disability, and challenge society to change the way that they handle it. Dr. Sally Lindsay, senior scientist at Holland Bloorview’s research institute, says: “At some point, people need to overcome their discomfort with people they perceive as different from themselves—once you do that, attitudes can begin to change for the better.”
