Disabled and Disenfranchised

This blog investigates employment and job opportunities of people with varying disabilities.

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Happy 35th Birthday to one the absolute best Braille book non-profits ever. @seedlingsbraillebooks They have transcribed so many print books in to Braille so every can share in the story together. #accessibility [Photo Description- the Seedlings Braille Book sign with the the words “35 years” on the left hand side. #seedlingsbraillebooksforchildren #braille (at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz4MRQih6agzA-RW9gEQfXHfbhZ8G5CpNFEo1M0/?igshid=e33ss99b1dpo

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Please share this with friends, family, and co-workers.👍Thank you so much for the help my friends🌸🌸🌸🌸. Any and all donations are welcome. I appreciate all the help🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋!!! Here the link https://www.gofundme.com/f/braille-for-the-future?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&rcid=73ed1ca16a374608800101255fca87c8 (at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByvgJYWB2ifnDie-XH6vIeXVHrazPD3vHe40IE0/?igshid=aqxx8zx9uaet

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Live for Braille | Givetaxfree.org

Hey everyone😃. My name is Chinonyerem but my friends calls me Noye. I have Oculocutaneous Albinism. It is a rare genetic condition in which the eyes, skin and hair have no pigment. It also results in a very poor eye sight. I am legally blind. I am in college right now and am studying to ... Read More

Hey everyone😃. My name is Chinonyerem but my friends calls me Noye. I have  Oculocutaneous Albinism. It is a rare genetic condition in which the eyes, skin and hair have no pigment. It also results in a very poor eye sight. I am legally blind. I am in college right now and am studying to ... Read More

All the money you give is completely tax deductible so please share this with your friends.😃. Thank you!!!

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A Hero from the Past

   I recently had the pleasure of coming across an anthology called Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them by Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals. This book is generally about why, how, and what heroes do in our lives. We start by taking a different approach on this book by using the example of the strong and brave, Irena Sendler. She was a Polish social worker, humanitarian, and nurse who also served in Polish underground during WW11 in German - occupied Warsaw. In 1943, in October she was the head of the children’s section of zegota, the Polish council to aid Jews. In the beginning Irena had to do a very difficult thing, knocking on parent’s doors and ask to give up their children. She realized how close to impossible this task was, but she knew that it had to be done. She always had the children’s safety in mind. The fate of these children was to die at the hand of the Nazis. That fate would have happened if they stayed at home and the parents knew that to be the truth too. She knew that the children’s lives were the most important and precious to their world. It was almost like no matter what we must always try to save the children. Irena Sendler is a true hero from the past. She is a hero that does not need a costume or a cape. She had a pure heart and that is really all you need. She should always be remembered and loved for every good deed she has done and all the people that she unconditionally cared about. If she were alive today, I can only imagine that she might feel like this world lacks real life heroes at first glance. In my opinion, there should be more people in this world who are always willing to make man-kind a better place.

Irena Sendler 

   I liked this book because I was more informed on the topic then I was before. This material helped give me a better understanding of heroes in the real world because they used a real human from the past, more specific WW11 which I have provided a description from. The book’s audience would include people who are interested in learning about real life heroes and need a real example of it. The genre is within an anthology. The strengths include giving an informative example that lets you see all the emotions and experiences that a hero in the world would have. The weaknesses include going off into the nitty griddy details that may or may not be important depending on the reader. I personally feel like this book served as an appropriately source for me for research purposes. The details surrounding Irena’s life and the life saving things that she did, helps me further understand why she is being used as an example and why she is admired. 

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🔥Championing: Fan the Flames and Push Forward🔥

Do you know someone who has been discriminated against at work? Or rather do you know someone who has been discriminated against before that were even given the chance to prove themselves?

Unfortunately, the above occurs quite frequently to people with “disabilities”, whether it be a learning disability, blindness, autism, a physical impairment, you name it. These people, like many others have achieved degrees and certificates in various fields, yet when they go to seek employment, people within the company or workplace judge them as if they don’t deserve to be there and for nothing more than a condition they were born with or that has happened to them as a result of an accident.

I want to introduce to you someone who has encountered discrimination in her profession because of her condition. Mr. Harriet Go is a special education teacher for the School District of Philadelphia. She has been teaching for 14 years and she wanted to become a teacher because she “has a passion for teaching, especially children, helping them to grow and reach their full potential. She also emphasizes that she absolutely “loves” it. She stated she “couldn’t imagine doing anything else”.

When Ms. Harriet was in the process of obtaining her degree, she enjoyed many things about it. One specific aspect she mentioned is that she “loved learning from the professors, a lot of whom were previous teachers in the elementary classroom, about their experience in the classroom and different situations that may occur in the classroom”.

Ms. Harriet said that one of the only challenges that occurred while she was in school was when she was doing her student teaching. The principal and the teacher that she was working with at the school were skeptical about how a teacher can be blind and be a teacher. While she was there, she said she really had to help them see past that stereotype that a person has to be sighted to be a teacher. Ms. Harriet did seek legal advice in case she needed it as she sought employment.

One of the final questions I asked Ms. Harriet was what advice she would give to someone with a disability of the steps that they would take in order to decrease the chance that they will lose a job opportunity due to discrimination based on the fact that they have a disability. She provided 4 pieces of advice that people should always remember.

1.     Learn as much as you can while you are still at school.

2.     Take advantage of every opportunity that you can that will help to increase your knowledge and your experiences/ Make sure to establish relationships with people and build up your network and connections.

3.     Make sure you start developing different strategies and techniques that you are going to use when you get into your own job so then you are able to show people that you developed different strategies and alternative methods for doing things to accommodate yourself.     

Source- Photo Description- The words “Believe in Yourself” written in black ink. In the background is a beautiful collage of bubble shaped circles surrounded in a wide range of colors; purple, pink, yellow.

4.    BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. Above all else, this has to be at the front and behind of everything that you do. Even with all the knowledge and the skill and the network, if you don’t have confidence and believe in yourself, you are not going to get far. Be confident that you have the experience and skills that you need to do what you set out to do.  

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🌙☀️Everyone In The Workplace Matters; A Brighter and Better Future for ALL ☀️🌙

Not every problem has to be solved starting with the administrators. Change can occur from the lowest level of a company, the employees, and work its way upward. This one of the takeaways form the book I read titled Nurses’ With Disabilities: Professional Issues And Job Retention.

Source Photo Description- The cover of Dr. Leslie Neal-Boylan’s book “Nursed with Disabilities which shows a nurse on the left hand side wearing a pink scrub uniform and hold a clip board. The title  Nurses’ With Disabilities: Professional Issues And Job Retention. is written in the middle in front of a pink black ground. 

The is book was written by Leslie Neal-Boylan, a professor and assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Program Innovation in the School of Nursing at the MGH Institute. Dr. Neal-Boylan is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and is also certified in rehabilitation nursing. Dr. Neal-Boylan has done research in the nursing workplace, and her most recent research pertains to nurses and nursing students with disabilities. Dr. Neal-Boylan also leads the Nurses with Disabilities Campaign.    

“Nurses’ With Disabilities: Professional Issues And Job Retention” is a monograph style book. It starts at the beginning with defining disability and throughout the book describes the fight and struggle of people with disabilities in the nursing field. The books also challenges the preconceived and quite frankly dated and aged notions regarding disability and who the individual who has a disability is able to function at work. This book also addresses another issue that many don’t know about, and that is high turnover rate of people with disabilities in nursing One of the strengths of this book is if incorporates stories of the “experience of nurses who have faced barriers that are not fact based and that in some cases deprived the profession or society of their capacity as fully contributing and functioning members.”. (Neal-Boylan IX) Some of the nurses mentioned in the book have left the flooring nursing shift because other employees as well as the employers have made it so difficult to work as the facility. The nurses mentioned in this study had a varying range of disabilities. See the table below.

Source Photo Description- A list of various disabilities mentioned in the book. They are all list below. Rheumatoid arthritis, Back pain, Crohn’s disease, Osteoarthritis,Herniated disc, Psoriatic arthritis, Hearing impairment, Status post brain tumor, Fibromyalgia, Fused wrist/foot, Tetralogy of Fallot, Ureterostomy, Deafness, Paraplegia, Chronic pain, Joint pain, Epilepsy or other seizure disorder, Post polio syndrome, Spinal cord injury, Multiple sclerosis, Latex allergy, Stroke, Diabetes mellitus, Muscular dystrophy, Visual impairment, Speech disorder, Wrist joint removal, Missing joints, and Amputation

This is a very well written book. However, no book is without its faults. I would say one the critics of this book has to be that it doesn’t capture the mental disabilities, disabilities having to do with the brain. In the chart shown above, conditions such as Autism and Asperger Syndrome and there are nurses who have these and other conditions.  Didn’t see one mention of them.           

I believe this book should be an in the hands of many professionals, managers, corporate managers nursing students, teachers, engineers, CEO’s, basically everyone across all forms of employment. Dr. Neal-Boylan is a champion and advocate for professionals with disabilities in the workplace. This book brings forward a problem and offers possible solutions to the problem. People with disabilities need to feel welcomed at work like any other person at work. They deserve to be able to keep the job that they have work hard to obtain the degrees for. They also should not feel as if they are being chased out of the job. They have every right to be there. This is one of the main messages deciphered in the book. Managers and even other employees need to do a better job at nipping prejudice in the butt before if even becomes an issue and this goes for not only disability prejudice but race, gender, sex, and age. No one should never have to feel as if they have to hide their disability to “fit in” anywhere because no one should judge another person’s ability level based one aspect of that person. It’s the same as judging someone based on eye color, hair type, body type; it is only one aspect of who they are. It doesn’t define them.        

 MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Citation Neal-Boylan, Leslie. Nurses With Disabilities : Professional Issues and Job Retention. Springer Publishing Company, 2013.    

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Some VALUE👍 Them And Some DON’T👎

For a long time, companies have resisted in hiring people with disabilities. A lot of these companies believed that people with disabilities could not perform well in the workplace and that hiring these people would drag the company down to the ground. I was reading an opinion-based article titled, “Hiring People With Disabilities Is Good Business” , written by Ted Kennedy Jr., and they stated that “For years, companies have maintained low expectation about hiring people with disabilities. More recently, a number of companies found this notion turned out to be quite untrue.

Source: Photo Description: A person in a wheelchair in an office setting looking out the window. 

In recent studies, it shows that “companies that champion people with disabilities” actually outperforms other companies in profits and moral. As the article stated, “revenues were 28% higher, net income was 200% higher and profit shares 30% higher”.  

I know the questions in your heads are “Which companies achieved such feats and what have they done to support people with disabilities? “Well, Bank of America brought together 300 people with intellectual disabilities to create a support services team to manage fulfillment services and external client engagement. Microsoft built a successful disability hiring program specifically for people on the autism spectrum. The program, designed to attract talent, is a multiday, hands-on academy that gives candidates an opportunity to meet hiring managers and learn about the company as an employer of choice. And CVS Health refocused its training programs to capitalize on characteristics — creativity, problem-solving ability and loyalty — that people with disabilities often demonstrate.”.

This particular article identified 5 commons aspects supported by research that many companies, like the ones mentioned above, have in common.

1.     They hire people with disability and ensure they are represented in the workplace.

2.     They carry out practices that encourage and advance those employees.

3.     Third, they provide accessible tools and technologies, paired with a formal accommodations program.

4.     Fourth, they generate awareness through recruitment efforts, disability education programs and grass-roots-led initiatives.

5.     Fifth, they create empowering environments through mentoring and coaching initiatives.

It puts my heart at ease to see such progress with companies in hiring and retaining people with disabilities for jobs that are meaningful and that strive to create a better world for many others. But there is something that is still quite unsettling. Not all companies share the same mindset and values as the companies mentioned above. So what happens to the people with disabilities who are working for companies with a more disconfirming views of people with disabilities.

Source Photo Description- A right handed fist clenches American dollar bills in a stand for equal pay

Another article I came across titled “Many People With Disabilities Are Being Paid Way Below the Minimum Wage, and It’s Perfectly Legal. Sometimes as little as “pennies per hour.”, written by Ashley Dejean mention that companies such as “Kanda Industries” are allowed by law to pay people with disabilities under the legal minimum wage amount of $7.25 an hour, in most states, because of a  1938 provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act that permits employers, who apply to the Department of Labor for a waiver. The article also states “according to the department, about 20 percent of people with disabilities participate in the workforce, and of that group, about 3 percent, or approximately 195,000 workers, are being paid subminimum wages. These workers typically make well below the minimum wage, sometimes as low as “pennies per hour,” according to the Department of Justice.

The last point that I will mention is the above information does little to enhance the perspective of those who believe that people with disabilities “can’t compete, cannot hold down a job, are not worthy of the same protections all other citizens”. Because as you can see in the first article, the successful companies are the ones who value the input and the work of people with disabilities. Equal pay for equal work. 

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An Academic Stand Point Let’s take a more scholarly approach. Shall we?🌍

One may wonder if whether the reason that the displacement of individuals with disabilities in employment fields is high because the attitudes of employers is fixated on the thought that these people drag companies down in terms of productivity or rather is it that it will cost a great amount of money to retain them. Regardless of the reasons mentioned above or that we may think, we don’t have evidence that supports our conjecture. Therefore, we are going to examine a research study with a focus on gathering and analyzing the thought process, beliefs views of different companies and their stance on the hiring of people with disabilities.         

The article that we are going to use to fulfill the undertaking mentioned above is titled Overlooked and Underutilized. People with Disabilities are an Untapped Human Resource. Not only does this article examine reason why executives don’t want to hire PWDs but it also incorporates the suggestions of these executives on what can be done remedy the situation  

The article begins by stating that fact the baby boomer generation of people are retiring in the next coming years, however there is a bit a crisis in the labor force because there are not enough newer, younger generation employees to replace them. So, what are employers to do. They need a vast amount of people to fill the vacating positions. The article stated “One large untapped human resource is people with disabilities (PWDs). Why have employers mostly ignored this large labor pool?”    

This study took on the task of interviewing 38 corporate executives from small companies of about 0-49 employees, medium companies of about 50-499 employees and large companies of about 500+ employees. The companies were from eight different geographical locations in the United States; California, Colorado, Georgia,, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia and Washington D>C.

The type of interview this study choose to conduct is quite interesting. It is called a semi-structured interview and as they explained in the article, the semi-structured interview served two purposes; the first is open ended questions allow the participants to explain their feelings more fully. The second is the research is exploratory.

The study accumulated quite a few finding which table one explores. 

Source Photo Description- categories of whether the reason employers don’t hire people with disabilities is justified such as cost association, reaction to other, and job qualification. 

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🇺🇸🇦🇺🇬🇧Separate is❌ NEVER ❌Equal!! Take back the term “Disability”.🇬🇧🇺🇸🇦🇺

Did you ever hear the words “It’s a perfect time to be….. “blind” or “Deaf” or “be on the Autism Spectrum”. In this day in age, there are a number of laws and programs that protect people from birth to perhaps even death with disabilities in schools, transportation, and places of work in a number of different countries. America, as I mentioned in the introduction post, implemented and enforces ADA (The Americans with Disabilities Act) and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). Australia and the United Kingdom implemented and enforces the Disabilities Discrimination Act of 1992.      

Did you think people with disabilities have always had these rights such as access to ramps on public land school buses, sidewalks that dip at the corner to wheelchairs can safely get on and off the sidewalk or even talking lights that allow people who are visually impaired to cross the street indenpendently? It’s very much true that people living with different disabilities today in a number of countries are very fortunate to have laws and organizations that protect them, however, it wasn’t without the sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears from a number people who believed that people with disabilities mattered and should be treated as people. These laws also came to fruition because believed that people with disabilities deserved to be a part of society instead of rotting away, locked behind the doors in an institution until they eventually died.

Source- Photo Description: A yellow public transportation bus in in Adelaide, Australia. The driver of the bus lowered the built in wheelchair ramp of the bus and assists a women in a wheelchair to get on the bus.   

I came across a film, a documentary if you will, that I wanted to share with you all. It is titled “Defiant Lives” Rise of the Disability Rights Movement”. This particular documentary goes through and explores the many events that took place to fight for the rights and independence of people with disabilities in three countries, Australia, the United States and Britain. Be forewarned, there are scenes in this documentary that are quite difficult to look at, SO BRACE YOURSELF!!!!  

As you watch this film, you will come across activists whom you probably have never heard about before who have led the disability rights movement in three countries, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. You also get to hear stories about people who are actually lived in institutions desired to house and imprison people with disabilities because they were not “considered human” and they were not deemed suitable for society.

Source- Photo Description- A great photograph of a large brick wall 3 story institution where people with disabilities were hosed. In from of the Institution stand trees who leaves have fallen off and the branches are twisted.  

They didn’t have any civil rights let alone human rights. People with disabilities in these institutions were not allowed to get married and if they had a child, the child would be taken away and put up for adoption.  

Source- Photo Description: Mrs. Jan Daisley who has a physical disability is sitting in a adapted wheel chair next husband toking at the camera. Mrs. Jan is an author, university graduate, community leader and she spent many years of her life locked up in an institution

This documentary was designed to do a couple different things; one of which is to inform. If you were to ask random individuals about the Disability Rights Movement, you would most likely get the same outcome as the people in the video titled “End Women’s Suffrage Before the Election! Say These Women!”, who asked a number of women if “Woman’s Suffrage”, the law that gave women the right to vote. These people knew absolutely nothing about a right or situation that has everything to do with them. The Disability Rights Movement and rights for people with disabilities is a similar topic that unfortunately people don’t have common knowledge of.

Video of “End Women’s Suffrage Before the Election! Say These Women 

The second purpose of this documentary is to persuade. Throughout the movie, people of all types of abilities held rallies, chained themselves to buses, and preformed “sit-ins” in order to convince companies and law makes of their affiliated countries that are entitled to civil as well as human rights just like non-disabled individuals The more people who are informed about the rights of people with disabilities, the more people there are to fight to preserve those rights and ensure that mistreatment of people with disabilities doesn’t occur.  

The rights for people with disabilities have developed and changed so much because people were willing to stand up and fight. But is the fight truly finished? To find out the answer to this question, read my o=post about titled “Some VALUE Them And Some DON’T”, and form your own conclusion. When you do so, please share it with me in the comments.            

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☠️Institutions = Imprisonment☠️ A HORRIFIC Reality

Disclaimer- Warning!!!- Please watch with discretion. Scenes in the following films may be hard to watch for some of you.

Institutions were used to house and hide people with disabilities so society wouldn’t have to deal with them. Families would have the option to abandon their child with a disability at the institution, or for children at an orphanage, so that they can “have normal lives” and so they wouldn’t have to worry about these children anymore. These institutions were nothing short of jail or a living hell as some would put it, with inadequate health care, horrendous living conditions and child graveyards for the ones who didn’t make it.    

I have watched these two films at least a hand full of times and it still angers me that any individual let alone a nation would condone such behavior, especially when there were children involved. The first film is called “Ukraine’s Forgotten Children” and the other is called “Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children”. Both of these films dictate the horrors of being born with a disability as a child. Ukraine’s Forgotten Children takes it further, and home in on the adult with disabilities as well. Did you know in Ukraine, if you have a disability, the government takes away your rights as a human being. In order to get them back, you have to prove to the courts that you a competent and able to function effective. Then if the courts rule in your favor, you get your rights back. You will see this fact explained in the movie.        

This video is Ukraine’s Forgotten Children (BBC4 Documentary) 

The video below is Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children (BBC Documentary)    

I guess some countries haven’t come as far as other have when it comes to protecting children and adults with disabilities. And those countries who we think are doing what they can for the protection of people with disabilities really have a ways to go.

Let me know your thoughts after watching the films.  

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⭐️Inspiration- Shining Light⭐️

Greeting my friends. I wanted to share with a number of people have disabilities who have very much inspired me to reach for stars and go beyond them and to exceed expectations. One quote that I keep close to me when I think about these people and even in regard to myself is “Do not go where the path my lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) In a nut shell, at least in my eyes, this quote means create to your own path. You are in charge of your own destiny. Write your story that others can draw inspiration from so that they can then create their own path. An extremely positive cycle and one that will create a better world. Here are just a few people who have inspired me to create my own path and leave a trail.

Andrea Bocelli    

Source- Photo Description- Andrea Bocelli has a teal background behind him. He is smiling. He is wearing a dark burgundy collar dress shirt. His left hand lays on the dark platform while the right gently placed in the middle of his left bicep.   

Andrea Bocelli is an Italian tenor singer and songwriter. He was born September 22, 1958 in Lajatico, Italy. He is considered one of the worlds most talented singers. Andrea Bocelli was born with congenital glaucoma which left him partially blind. He lost his remaining vision at the age of 12 due to a blow to the head during a game.

The interesting thing about Andrea Bocelli is that he didn’t begin his singer until the 1980s. Before that, he obtained a law degree from the University of Pisa and became a court appointed lawyer after graduation. He initially began playing piano in a variety of venues throughout Italy. He is also able to play the flute and saxophone. Bocelli fame exploded when  Luciano Pavarotti, an esteemed tenor opera singer, heard the recording of a demo tape of "Miserere" that Bocelli has done. In the end, Pavarotti and Bocelli wound up singing Miserere together and it was a tremendous success Eurepe wide.

I am a huge fan of Andrea Bocelli. He is my idol. My favorite songs sung by him are “Nelle Tue Mani” which translates to “in your hand” and the new song he sang with his son Matteo called “Fall on Me”.

Mr. Bocelli if you are reading this I truly admire you because with the power of your voice and all who stood with you, you were able achieve great things. You grew wings not just to fly, but to sore.  

Molly Burke

Source- Photo Description- Molly Burke smiling. She has both hands proper under either side of her face. She is wearing a grey fuzzy sweater. She also has pink hair. 

If you need some inspiration and pep to perk up you day, head on over to Molly Burks channel on YouTube and watch all of her videos. Molly was born on February 8, 1994 in Toronto, Canada. She was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa which is a rare degenerative retinal disease. One of the most amazing things I admire about Molly is that first, she loves to help other people and two, she faced struggle and hardship, but she didn’t let it destroy her. She found the strength and endurance to face her challenges head on and overcome them.

In addition to being a Youtuber, Molly is also a motivational speaker; sharing her story and inspiring millions.

If I may recommend specific videos to watch, Molly recently uploaded a 10-episode series on her channel titled “The 10 Year Journey” where she shares the story of doing what other, including herself, thought she couldn’t do. You won’t regret it.          

Steven Hawking

Source- Photo Description of Steven Hawking smiling in his power wheelchair. 

Steven Hawking is another individual who I absolutely admire and who inspires me to go beyond my physical limits.

Steven hawking was born on January 8 1942 in Oxford, United Kingdon. Hawking was the former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and author of A Brief History of Time which is an international bestseller. He was also Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and Founder of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge.

In 1963, Hawking was diagnosed with slow-progressing form ofmotor neurone disease (MND. This disease is also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis "ALS" or Lou Gehrig's disease). When Hawking was diagnosed, he was given only 2 years to live  because ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. This disease left Hawking paralyzed and unable to have control of his body. This is particularly why Hawking inspires me. Hawking was paralyzed and he knew that one asset he had left was his brain. His brain was still as sharp at ever. Hawking wrote many books and came up with some of the world most thrilling theories such as his theory of black holes and the origin of the universe.   

These people I mentioned above are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other people with disabilities who have done amazing things and have written their own story. One in particular that I didn’t mention was Louis Braille who created the Braille code so that blind and visually impaired individuals would be able to read and write and have access to education.  

Now it is you turn. I’d like to hear about who inspires you to create your own trail.

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Where Do We Even Begin to Look?

(Photo shows a 3D character folding their arms thinking with the words “where do I start” in all caps next to them.)

I have to say, when I started this blog journey, I didn’t have the slightest idea how and where I was going to find information that would coordinate with this topic.

First, I thought about going to the school library and simply going through the books and hope that I come across one that has any resemblance to disabilities. That idea was quickly squashed because it would take me perhaps 20 years to search through each and every book. There have been times when I had a research project to do that required more book sources than internet sources and I literally went to the nearest library and pulled books off the selves that had anything to do with the topic I was working on. 

(Photo shows a 3D character pecking out from behind a tall stack of books about 3 times their size heigh and twice their size wide.) 

I even thought about just going on Google, typing in my topic and seeing what came up. When I did this, I actually got a couple of hits. A majority of the result were articles that looked great and would have added a wealth of information to this blog; the only problem was, I had to pay a good chunk of money in order to access the articles. How terribly unfortunate.

I didn’t know what to do. Do I use money that I really don’t have to pay for the subscription to the articles? I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

(Photo shows a 3D character sitting on the ground with his hands on his head with negative red dollar signs above them.)

I wound up returned to the library, but this time, I wasn’t here to wonder aimlessly in a mountain of books. I was here to meet with someone who could help me, the Education librarian Mrs. Karen Wanamaker.

(Photo shows two 3D characters, one son the left and one on the right. The character on the lefts sitting on the ground looking defeated with red arrows above them pointing down. The character on the right is jumping for joy with blue arrows above them pointing up.)

Things started looking up. We sat down in front of a computer and Mrs. Wanamaker and explored the library resource page. She explained to me that as long as I was a student of the university, I will be able to access all the databases it had to offer. I didn’t know what type of sources, specific journals, or specific authors that I wanted to explore, so Mrs. Wanamaker recommended I first type my topic “Disabilities in the Workplace” in the Omnisearch which allowed me to search all of Kutztown University’s databases through EBSCOhost.

I came across a wide number of articles and books that could be included in the blog. Mrs. Wanamaker also showed me how to specify the results I was receiving using the “not”, “and”, and “or” functions in EBSCOhost which are formally referred to as Boolean Operators; a neat fact fact I learned from Mrs. Wanamaker. 

As I mentioned before, I found so many wonder books and articles such as a book titled “Nurses With Disabilities” by Leslie Neal-Boylan, which explores different situations of nurses with disabilities and how they are treated in their place of work. There is good chance that this book will be discussed further in this blog, so if you want to find out more about it, please follow this blog so you don’t miss it.

(Photo shows the front cover of the book “Nurses With Disabilities” of a nurse in the background wearing pink colored scrubs) 

Mrs. Wanamaker also suggested areas in my topic that I may consider researching such as the job rate of people with disabilities straight out of college or job opportunities for individuals with several different types of disabilities. I could also explore lawsuits that have ensued due to job discrimination based on disability. The possibilities are endless and it’s all thanks to Mrs. Karen Wanamaker. I learned so much from my visit. I know have a place to start. LET’S SEE WHERE IT GOES!!  

(Photo shows a beautiful sunset sky with rays of light shining on a road with the word “start” written in all caps) 

[blinddragon22-blog]

EVERYONE Deserves a FAIR shot! Does EVERYONE always get one?

Have you every heard any of these phrases spoken to you before?

BROKEN. NOT CAPABLE. WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO PERFORM THE TASKS THE THEIR OTHERWISE “NON-DISABLED”. LAZY. WASTE OF SPACE. TOTALLY NOT WORTH MY TIME!

If you haven’t been exposed to these phrases, chances are someone you know has, whether it was said to them directly or indirectly. These are all words and phrases that employers have used to explain why they don’t want to hire an individual with a disability.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is important to remember that the term “disability” is a legal term instead of a medical term. You might be asking “well what do they mean by a legal turn and not a medical term”? The word “disability” is not a medical diagnosis but a legal term used in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to recognize and protect the educational right of students with disabilities. In order for a student to receive services and special education from IDEA, the child must be recognized as having a disability under the 13 categories of IDEA. In order to receive services from Section 504, the student must also meet the guidelines for needing those services. The ADA defines disability as a “physical or mental impairment that limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of having such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment”.  

People with disabilities in the workplace are usually seen just as their disability and not as a valued member the community of workforce. But Why? 

Why is that instead of workplaces like that of this photo where everyone in the workplace stand together in solidarity,

workplaces resemble this photo where the person with the disability is isolated.

Why is it that when some people find out that an individual has a disability or handicap, in this case employers, they assume that these individuals are of less value or incapable of completing the same tasks that their “non-disabled” counterparts that they were hired to fulfill? These are a few of the questions that this blog will investigate. I will particularly focus my research in the United States employment fields in order to condense information, however I will include statistics of the United States’ rate of employment of the individuals with disabilities compared to certain other countries. I will also explore the unemployment rate of people with disabilities in several fields of employment such as medical, educational technology, as well as the employment that people with disabilities do pursue and why.          

The intended purpose of this blog is to expose and illuminate the discrimination against this population of individuals. What are companies doing to combat this crisis? I know of individuals who have faced discrimination based on their disability when trying to find employment and many of them are willing to share their first-hand experience on this blog. You will be able to read about their struggles and hardships as they fought for their right to equal opportunities of employment. As you read, mentally evaluate your own places of work. Is your place of work willing to hire individuals with disabilities? And if so, what positions do they hold? Do you see an imbalance? Also ask yourself, if people know this injustice is happening, why do they choose to turn their heads, avert their eyes, turn off their ears and close and lock their hearts towards these people?