The Canaan Home

Well this is it. This is my last blog post from my summer travels. I am back in Des Moines now and, well, okay to be honest I was in Des Moines last week and I’m just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico right now writing this, BUT I will be back in Des Moines by next week. Yeah, I kind of have a problem sitting still. Anyway I’m back stateside now so my next post will be something much more domestic. This also means that they will (hopefully) become more frequent. However, before I post my last exciting international stop, I want to tell all of you about an exciting new local event I’ll be participating in. On Tuesday October 4^th I will be speaking about my travels and experiences related to disability in Asia and the U.S. at the Des Moines downtown public library.

The Iowa International Center has asked me to speak about my summer as part of their Pioneer HiBred International Dialogue series. I’m pretty excited about this opportunity and I really hope you can make it. Now I know what you’re thinking “But Dan, I’ve already read the blog why would I want to come see you talk about it now?” Here’s why. While stories from the blog will obviously be part of my presentation, there will be photos and stories that did not get put on the blog. Additionally, I will be speaking about my experiences with disability in Japan, which was not included in this blog at all. And I will be answering questions after my speech so I really hope you bring some good ones. Of course the real draw here is that you can actually meet me in person—which I know is a fantasy for a lot of my fans out there. I’ll do what I can to sign autographs and headshots for all of you who show up but I just can’t make any promises. Only joking. But in all seriousness the Iowa International Center really is a great organization here in Des Moines so it would be worth it to come to learn more about them and Disability Rights Iowa anyway. Hope to see you there!

Resident of the Canaan Home who sells popsicles to support the home.

Every day in Taiwan we had “culture class”. And it just so happened that one day our topic was about the aging population in Taiwan. I wasn’t too excited about the topic to be honest but then I found out that the speaker ran a nursing home and home for people with disabilities in the area. He incorporated a lot of disability politics into his presentation, which made me much more interested in what was going on. The most interesting aspect of this presentation for me was that the speaker/owner of these facilities came from a business background (MBA I believe) rather than a social work, political, medical background. This was a perspective I have not really encountered in the disability field before. I’m used to hearing phrasing like “serving the population” not “finding a niche market”. I emailed our speaker after his presentation and asked if I could visit his facility.

I’m not exactly sure what I was hoping to do but part of me felt like I was one of the advocates/investigators in our office. I was going to go to this facility and make sure that these people were being cared for and not exploited for profits. Not that I had any possible way of enforcing the laws of Taiwan, whatever they are, as they related to people with disabilities, but you have to appreciate my gumption I suppose.

Outside view of the Canaan Home.

Of course I didn’t find anything out of sorts when I visited this facility either. Instead I found a high quality, well run, home for people with disabilities. The Canaan Home was founded by it's current owner (the speaker we had) when he opened a nursing home for his grandmother. There was no such facility in the area and he saw a need for it. After a couple years they opened the adjacent home for people with disabilities. The facility has grown to now employ 35 caretakers to look after 65 residents. What makes this home unique is that it accepts people with ANY type of disability. Other organizations in Taiwan are disability specific but the Canaan Home accepts everyone. Well, everyone that they can afford.

Me with some of the residents.

The government of Taiwan offers funding for people with disabilities to be placed in facilities like these but that funding varies drastically depending on the type and severity of the disability. I was told that some less scrupulous organizations will accept people with disabilities only because the government will fund them for a certain amount of time, let’s say 3 months, and then after 3 months the organization throws the individual with a disability back on the street. The Canaan home only accepts people that they know they can care for long-term which means that while they accept fewer people, they provide extremely high levels of care to the people they can accept.

To supplement this funding and help keep the organization running, many residents work for the Canaan home to help earn their keep. They garden, work in the onsite restaurant (which serves amazing noodles F.Y.I.), sell popsicles, bag and sell teas, and many other odd jobs around the facility. I met one of these residents/employees while I was there who had quite the story to tell. He was 27 years old and had recently been thrown out of another facility because he was deemed “too smart” to have a disability and didn’t “look disabled”. He has suffered from kidney failure and a clubbed foot for years and found a warm welcome at the Canaan Home selling tea to support himself.

This is my tea-selling friend I just mentioned. 

In addition to these kinds of services, the Canaan home also runs an afterschool program for local children. The purpose of this program is to keep the kids safe after school, to have them interact with the elderly people in the nursing home who don’t get visits from their actual grandchildren, and to teach these kids about disability.

Garden/Courtyard in the back. 

Back at school, a friend of mine asked me “So how was your visit to that home for people with disabilities? Were they being mistreated in the interests of profits after all?” “No, actually it was a really great facility. It was clean, there were great activities for the residents, and I can tell that the workers actually care about them.” “Well that’s great then! I mean that’s the only thing that matters right? Weather it is because the owner is passionate, or wants to make money, all that matters is that the people in the facility are being cared for, right?” She had a point. In the end, THAT is the most important thing.

Sometimes being the intern is hard. And other times it's a pretty sweet gig.
The residents have access to this foot bath on site!

Disability Services in Pingtung, Taiwan

I said earlier this summer that the reason I was traveling is because I would be studying Chinese in Taiwan and that is what I have been doing for a while and is consequently the reason that blog posts have been sparse this summer. But, while I have been in Taiwan studying Chinese language and culture I have also been visiting some disability related organizations. Today I am really excited to write about the first two I went to. Unlike the organizations I wrote about in India, these are programs set up by the government of Taiwan.  The first place I visited was a “daycare” program for people with intellectual and behavioral disabilities and the second was a summer school program for students with disabilities who need a place to go while their parents work.

The first organization is for adults (18-65) with disabilities. It serves the purpose of being a day program in which people participate in activities and programs while their families are working or in school. When I walked in, one of the participants excitedly told me that they had just returned from the theater where they watched a 3-D movie. My Chinese is not good enough to understand which movie they saw but I think it had something to do with a fish. At any rate they seemed to have really enjoyed it. They get to participate in a variety of other activities in the course of the average day and week too (walk in the park, paint, and listen to music were among their activities for the day I was visiting).

In addition to these activities, the participants in this program also meet with trained staff everyday who monitor their disabilities for any changes and record progress being made throughout the summer. Every Tuesday and Thursday physical and occupational therapists come and provide them with individualized sessions. Their days are busy enough to keep the participants active but lax enough that they didn’t mind a visit from this plucky little Disability Rights Iowa representative.

The daily schedule for the day I visited. 

Now this whole amazing program costs about US$400 a month which is pretty expensive by Taiwanese standards, but half of that cost is paid for by a philanthropic organization in Taiwan. Additionally, I heard that if a family is too poor to afford this program, they can apply for a waiver and their family member can enter for free.

After this organization, I went to a school for special education that runs a summer school for students with “mild disabilities” in the city I’m living in. During the school year students with disabilities attend school with other students but may go to some special education classes and might go to a program like this afterschool, but during the summer they spend their days here so that they have an appropriate place to go while their parents are at work.

Dan: Blogger and Junglegym. 

Visiting this school was one of the highlights of my summer in Taiwan because these kids were amazing to meet with. Unlike their petit, middle-aged caretakers, I could handle a good roughhousing and have the physical ability to pick them up. Once it was discovered that I was able to pick them up and simultaneously spin them in circles, I was commissioned to be a full-time amusement park ride. After spinning several of them until I was worn out (they never were of course) I was challenged to several rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors which I lost handedly. I got to learn a lot about some of the children individually which is always the most interesting to hear. I was touched to learn that the boy who was most emphatic about me tossing him around like a ragdoll came to the school months before with a behavioral disability that left him afraid of human touch. “But he loved having you pick him up and spin him. He must really like you!”

I don't think I won a single round. 

Then one of the teachers told me that one of the boys has Asperger’s Syndrome but that he has “excellent learning potential”. He is in fifth grade but is independently teaching himself math this summer and had finished the seventh grade coursework on his own by this point in the summer.  He also spoke the best English in his class and by fifth grade spoke enough English to put me in my place when he beat me at Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is a prime example why I think we need to consciously work to move disability rhetoric away from “can’ts” and focus on “cans”. Some would label his brain as being “disabled” but any “disability” that would make me a math and linguistics whiz sounds like a bonus to me.

Two of the special education teachers sporting
Disability Rights Iowa tee shirts and materials. 

Finally, I got to meet a really sweet girl who kept to herself most of the time I was there.  Before I left, one of the teachers told me that she really wanted a picture with me. She is a senior high school student who lives with Prader-Willi Syndrome. I told her and her teacher all about the group home in Iowa we have for people with Prader-Willi Syndrome (Read about my visit there HERE) and then I told her that I had a good pal in America who also had Prader-Willi Syndrome. I went to sit by her for a picture and when I said hello she blushed and tried to escape me. Her teacher told me that she was shy around boys she thought were cute and that she was embarrassed about asking to be in a photo with her for the same reason. Now, I’m not a particularly good-looking man, but I have been fortunate enough in my life to have a woman or two tell me I’m cute. This compliment is one of the most meaningful ones I’ve ever received from a girl. A week later my professor at my university came to me after class and asked me to be sure to send the photo to the girl I took it with. She asked her teacher to track down my teacher and ask her to remind me. I have never been so flattered.

Amrit Somani Memorial Centre

I’m sorry for the infrequency of posts this summer but I promise that it has not been out of negligence. I have been really busy hopping between countries or in class for my entire summer so there is not a ton of time for posting. I also have been leaving a lot of space between posts to make sure that everyone gets a chance to read each post (maybe several times) before I move on because I think that it is kind of rare for a nonprofit of our size to be doing something like this and I want to make sure as many people as possible can read about what we are doing this summer. So here are some quick updates and then I will get to my actual post which is also my last post from India!

1)   Since my last post, members of Disability Rights Iowa successfully rode in RAGBRAI across the state of Iowa spreading awareness for people with disabilities in our state. Sadly I am in Taiwan right now so I was not able to go with my coworkers but from what I can see on Facebook, it looked like an amazing time! Want to see the pics for yourself? Scroll down the right-hand side of this page and click the “Facebook” button to view our official Facebook page. Here you can see pics from RAGBRAI and many other events we do as well as read updates and links our staff posts for you. While you’re there, you can go ahead and become our official fan as well. Speaking of “fans”, I see that Disability Rights Iowa also went to an Iowa Cubs game this summer while I was conveniently out of the office/country. I’m sure my presence was sorely missed. Anyway, check out our Facebook page as it is full of great information and gets updated MUCH more frequently than this blog does right now.

2)   Also I have some exciting news about this blog since my last post. Last week, this blog received its 10,000^th page view! And as of right now we are precariously close to 11,000. And. AND Between Google followers, e-mail subscriptions, and RSS feeds, it has over 100 followers now! You guys rock. I’m really excited about this news so I have been chomping at the bit to put some more content up here. I have another exciting international visit planned in the coming weeks so be sure to check back in soon to see where I go next.

3)   Well, maybe those are the big news points. Hmm but I always heard you should do things like this in threes. Oh I just wanted to remind everyone that if you have questions or suggestions for the blog to please comment on the posts because I don’t have a lot of time to write entire posts but I will be sure to reply to your comments as soon as I can with added information and answers to any questions you may have about my posts, travels, our office, anything. Moral of the story? Please talk with me on this blog so I’m not just sittin’ by my lonesome in a foreign country. Now on to the post!

The final location I went to in India related to disability in the country was much different from the previous two facilities I visited though certainly no less inspiring. I had a chance to visit the Amrit Somani Memorial Centre which is a school that works with students who live with Autism and other behavioral disorders. This center provides one on one teaching and tutoring for children with these types of disabilities which is important because usually a large classroom cannot accommodate the unique learning styles these students have. In addition to providing education for younger children, older kids who are in mainstream schools can also come to the Amrit Somani Centre for after school one on one tutoring to help them stay on top of their  school work and to continue to work on improving their behaviors. This is a key part of the school’s mission and curriculum as the director told me that the school functions under the belief that they “see behavior as something that can be changed” so no child is given up as a lost cause.

Rooftop Playground of the School

In addition to having the right kind of mindset when it comes to special education, the school’s staff is highly trained and extremely dedicated. The teachers all come from clinical psychology backgrounds and have specialized training every other Saturday to make sure that they are applying the most up-to-date methods to teaching their students. Having advanced training is a necessity for this school because having a disability that affects your language processing, learning, and/or behavior in India is especially difficult.

As I wrote in my last post, most people here function in three languages and the students at this school are no different. The difference is that when you have Autism or another disability that affects your communication abilities, your struggle is exacerbated by the fact that your parents speak to you in Hindi, your maid and neighbors speak to you in Bengali, and your teacher speaks to you in English. This presents a new struggle for these children as they work hard to catch up to other students and learn new material while adapting to their own unique learning style.

One of the Classrooms

What also sets this facility apart form the others I have written about is that it is privately funded and the students must pay to attend classes here.  By Indian standards the school is very expensive to attend so that means that many students who need these services are not able to take advantage of them at this point. However, this level of care is spreading across India slowly but surely. There are now 4 schools like the Amrit Somani Centre in India and there are plans for more to be built in the future. So more kids will be helped in the years to come.

While it would obviously be ideal for every child in India to receive this phenomenal level of care and education, we all have to start somewhere and this school is doing an incredible job providing help to students with Autism and other behavioral disorders in India. The staff here was incredible and is clearly improving the lives of the students they are working with and that’s what matters most.

While not every child in India has access to this level of education, every child in Iowa does. I wrote in my last post that education equality is (what I believe to be) one of the most important rights we are guaranteed under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This means that your school must do everything it can to meet your or your  child’s educational needs. Whether in 1^st grade or a college Junior, your rights to equal education are protected. As I said in my last post, we have staff at Disability Rights Iowa who are well versed and practiced in education policy as it relates to students with disabilities so please give us a call if you believe you or your child is not receiving the education the deserve. If you need help setting up an Individualized Education Program (IEP), have questions about educational resources, or any other questions or concerns regarding your education then please contact our office. 

Me with the Director (right) and two Teachers AND our Disability Rights Iowa  Tee Shirts

Bodhana

Because of the status of disability in India, many children and adults with disabilities are left to fend for themselves after being abandoned by their families. That is why places like the Prabartak Samgha Home and the next place I went are so important for protecting people with Disabilities in India. I had the opportunity to visit another residential facility just outside of Kolkata called Bodhana. Bodhana is another group home that works with boys and men between the ages of 7 and 35 who have intellectual disabilities.

The Entrance to Bodhana.

At present, Bodhana houses about one hundred boys and, just like Prabartak Samgha Home, the primary focus is training and educating these boys to “make them independent citizens of our society”. And the training and education that the boys receive here truly is the saving grace of the institution. To be completely honest, I was a little afraid when I first entered the Bodhana building. It has a feeling of being a prison or a warehouse. Very basic furnishings, concrete floors, walls, and ceiling, the sleeping quarters for the boys have doors made of cold, iron bars that make one think that this is someplace that you would want to break these children out of, not send them to. However, past the dark hallways and dimly lit quarters were classrooms full of English lessons, Bengali writing practice sheets, biology posters, musical instruments, and everything else you could expect to find in an elementary school classroom. 

The Boys in Their Classroom.

Yes maybe this was not the classroom of a wealthy suburban school district, but the caring and attention was still there. I watched as the staff of loving, caring adults taught their lessons to a room full of boys who seemed anxious to learn. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately depending on who you ask) as soon as I entered the classroom the boys decided that I was much more interesting than their lessons and the teacher kindly allowed them to take a break from their studies to meet with me, show me around the classroom, and introduce me to each other and some of their favorite toys.

I can’t even begin to put down in words what an amazing experience it was for me. Well I guess I can begin to put this down in words, because that’s sort of my job here…but you take my meaning anyway. There is just something so amazing about meeting these children because they were so excited to meet me and did not take the time to judge me or be confused about my skin color like so called “normal” children on the streets of Kolkata. In a matter of seconds I went from being a stranger in the class to being everyone’s’ new friend and I have seldom felt so welcome at a place before.

Me with Some of the Kids.

Of course it took almost no convincing for me to play with their cars and this really cool stuffed monkey that the boys had. One of the boys even made a point to show me that he had learned the English word for “monkey” and other objects in the classroom. This is maybe what I found to be so impressive about the Bodhana facility. When they said that their focus was on education and training, they really meant it. Much to the boys chagrin though I had to leave the small classroom to move on with the tour after a while and they needed to get back to studying and other activities.

Joining the Class.

In the next room, I found something that I found to be even more impressive than the classroom; a weaving room. Several of the older men were in this large room working at looms weaving beautiful towels, tablecloths, placemats, and many other linens. The staff at Bodhana provides training for some of the men to learn how to make these goods and then the men weave these amazing linens and sell them to help support the facility. The men working were very proud of their work and were excited to show me what exactly they did to help contribute to their home.

This is something that I was very excited to see. Not only did these men live here but they worked on their own (there was nobody overseeing them in the weaving room) and they made these amazing materials to support themselves and their fellow residents. Of course the sale of these materials alone doesn't support the facility in total but it does help keep costs down and, above all else, it gives these men and boys something to be proud of.

Two Men Working in the Weaving Room. 

After buying as much of their linens as I could carry (not sure how I’ll get everything back to the U.S. at the end of this summer, but that’s a problem for future Daniel I guess…) I went back down the hall where I found that the class had now taken a break and was starting their physical activity portion of the day. What was the activity you ask? Well they turned on the radio and started a random dance party in the classroom. I knew at once that this was my kind of place. After jamming out to a couple songs with them I was told that, unfortunately,  we needed to get going. I said goodbye to the boys and the staff and left Bodhana.

DANCE PARTY!!

Being in this type of organization, I can’t help but to see similarities between the goals and challenges this organization faces and the ones that we face at Disability Rights Iowa. As I wrote in my last post from India, we at Disability Rights Iowa work hard to—if I may quote from our purpose statement—“ support people with disabilities to secure their rights and full participation as citizens through a program of self-advocacy education, information and referral, non-legal advocacy, and legal and systems advocacy”. We work toward similar goals. No, we are not a residential facility by any means but we do work with residential facilities quite a bit. We strive toward giving the people we work with the ability to participate fully in our society just like everyone else.

Some of the Boys Sporting our New Tee Shirts.

We also provide information, training, and legal guidance as it relates to education for students with any type of disability in the state of Iowa. If you have a child with a disability and you don’t think that he or she is receiving equal education, then please call our office. We have people on staff who are experts in the fields of education policy and law as it pertains to students with disabilities. I, personally, firmly believe that education is the best way that we, as people with disabilities, can advance ourselves and prove that we will not be limited by what others say we CAN’T do. By working hard in school and having teachers and parents and friends that supported me I was able to get through college, spend a semester in Japan on a full scholarship, AND am in Taiwan all summer learning Chinese on another full scholarship. If I would have listened to the people who told me “can’t” when I was young I would never have had these opportunities. When I was five years old, a doctor told me that I was never going to be able to walk up stairs, I walked up over 500 of them to get to a mountain peak in Kobe, Japan last summer. If you are a student with a disability you have the RIGHT to equal access to education. Your school must provide you with reasonable accommodations to make sure that you get the education that is guaranteed to you no matter what your physical, intellectual, or learning disability is. If you are not receiving the education that you deserve then please call us to see what we can do to make sure that “can’t” never becomes a part of your education.

Finally, being with these boys and young men reminded me about an important campaign that we have worked on this year called “Spread the Word to End the Word”. We worked to spread this message at Kidsfest this year and have made the campaign part of our other outreach projects. I have written about this before (please read those posts again HERE and HERE) so I won’t repeat too much about the campaign. Basically it seeks to end the use of the word “Retard” and “Retarded” as slang terms for calling something stupid or something you don’t like. Being will these 100 guys with intellectual disabilities made me even more passionate about NOT using this word because it just doesn’t make sense and harms people and our society. The boys I met with all had intellectual disabilities but were learning in a trilingual classroom (Hindi, Bengali, English) and they are trained at making some of the most beautiful linen materials I have ever seen. So here is my question to all of the ignorant people out there who insist on using that word to mean “stupid”: How many languages do you speak? My guess is less than three. You know what’s not stupid? Being trilingual by age 12.

I could go on for pages and pages about this campaign, but I won’t because I just realized that this post is already pretty long. If you have questions about the “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign, please check out my other posts about it. You can also contact our office directly to see how you can get involved with us as we spread the word to end the word in Iowa.

Disability Rights Iowa

400 East Court Avenue Suite 300


Des Moines, Iowa 50309

Tel: (515) 278-2502

Toll Free (800) 779-2502


Fax: (515) 278-0539

Email: info@disabilityrightsiowa.org


TTY: (515) 278-0571

TTY Toll Free: (866) 483-3342

The Prabartak Samgha Home

As I said in my last post, it’s summer now. And for many students that means the opportunity to go on summer vacations. As a recent graduate of Drake University I am taking my summer to do some vacationing and some learning as well. I will be spending two months this summer in Taiwan studying Chinese. They always say that the time to travel is while you’re young though so I’m taking the month before my stint in Taiwan to travel around Asia. Don’t worry, because I will still be blogging for Disability Rights Iowa while I’m traveling.  So it is with great pleasure that I announce the first stop on my journey; Kolkata, India.

The Prabartak Samgha Home in Kolkata, India 

I had a chance to go to a group home for people in India with intellectual disabilities that was a pretty mind-opening experience. At Disability Rights Iowa, one of the issues that we work most closely with in Iowa is the condition of group homes in our state. We visit these facilities to ensure that the needs, wants, and rights of Iowans with disabilities in these facilities are being met. So I knew I wanted to go to a group home-type place in India so I could to compare my experiences.

I had a chance to meet with the residents. 

So I spoke to a friend of mine and he and his family took me to the Prabartak Samgha Home.  The Prabartak Samgha Home is a group home that was built in 1986 and currently has 51 residents. I had a chance to sit down with the owner and facilitator of this home to speak with him about the lives of people with disabilities in India and in Kolkata specifically. What he told me is a heart-breaking story of disability on the other side of the planet.

One of the residents was a gifted drummer and led the group in a song for me!

In India children born with Down Syndrome, Epilepsy, and other intellectual or developmental disabilities are often abandoned by their parents because care for these children is too expensive. In fact, these children are not even given inoculations for diseases and illnesses that still exist in India today. The owner told me that parents abandon their children in the streets and these kids suffer from sickness and illness until they are “rounded up” by the police and brought to a government observation station. The government then categorizes these children by their type of disability and severity and sends them to “appropriate facilities”. And this is where the government wipes its hands of this situation. These children are taken to facilities like the Prabartak Samgha Home and are given no support or aid from the government or their parents ever again. These houses are completely run by charities and subsist on donations from people in the community, local businesses, and corporations.

I passed out Disability Rights Iowa Pens, Notepads, and Bookmarks to each of the residents.
They all seemed thrilled to receive our gifts.

Once brought to a home, these orphans will spend the rest of their young lives in these facilities. Then, when they turn 18, they are kicked out. Fortunately for the residents at Prabartak Samgha Home, the owner has found ways to let them stay. “Even though we are supposed to move them out when they turn eighteen, there is no place for them to go so we let them stay here. And the residents who can, we provide them with jobs around the home”.

The owner and facilitator of the Prabartak Samgha Home. He has ran this house for 26 years.

In fact, many of the residents with more mild disabilities cook food for the home, participate in theater productions, and even tend the garden behind Prabartak Samgha Home to help support the facility that has become their true home and family. This helps the residents participate in their own home and decreases the cost of running such a facility. As I said,  the home is run from donations alone and there are over fifty residents to care for.

Showing off their new "VOTE" bookmarks and other materials from Disability Rights Iowa

This money pays for the cost of running the home and for medical and psychiatric care that is provided to each of the residents. The owner told me that medical care and therapy is important to the mission of his home because his motto is “The residents do not have “Illnesses”, they have conditions, and conditions can always improve.  If we help them with rehabilitation, we can help improve their lives”.

One of the rooms for the men in the facility.

Like most other charities and similar facilities though, Prabartak Samgha Home is under funded and cannot provide all that it wants to for people living here with disabilities. Many of the residents don’t receive the care or attention that they require but they are in a loving, caring home and it’s much better than the alternative.

I was given a tour by one of the residents who is also sporting one of our new Tee Shirts.

On the car ride home, my hosts asked me what I thought of the Prabartak Samgha Home as an organization and I told them about how touched I was at the openness of the staff and the obvious care they have for the residents who live there. I also told them about how the residents were thrilled to see me, welcomed me with a musical number, and were appreciative of the Disability Rights Iowa gifts I distributed to them. I also expressed to my hosts my concern that, as well intentioned as I think the home is, I don’t think it’s enough. “Well,” they said “at least its something. These people would be on the streets suffering if it weren’t for this home”.  I guess there’s nothing like a healthy dose of perspective to make you think.

So how can you help? The easiest way is right in your own backyard. If you or a family member or friend reside in a facility for people living with various intellectual, developmental, and/or physical disabilities remember that Disability Rights Iowa is a resource that will always be in your corner. If you believe you or a loved one in a facility is being mistreated please contact our office at:

Disability Rights Iowa

400 East Court Avenue Suite 300


Des Moines, Iowa 50309

Tel: (515) 278-2502

Toll Free (800) 779-2502


Fax: (515) 278-0539

Email: info@disabilityrightsiowa.org


TTY: (515) 278-0571

TTY Toll Free: (866) 483-3342

And please remember to read my last two posts to see how you can become more involved with Disability Rights Iowa. For information about our upcoming Partners in Preparedness Conference please click HERE. And for information on how you can pledge to donate to our organization by supporting our RAGBRAI trek across the state spreading awareness of protecting Iowans with disabilities please click HERE. 

Criptonite

It’s summer! And what does that mean? Well for some of you it means you are out of school and ready for fun and relaxation for a couple months. For others this flip of the calendar page changes nothing about your life except maybe now in addition to still going to work everyday you now have to find some place to stick your kids for 8 hours. Where do those kids end up? The pool? A friend’s house or babysitter? Or do you, like so many other parents let good ol’ misses Silver Screen watch your kids for a few hours once a week? It’s summer movie season and that means that Hollywood is cranking out anything and everything that it thinks will make a buck regardless of quality. So why do I care about this right now? And why should you care about what I have to say about it? Anyone who has been carefully reading this blog (so…nobody) might be able to guess what movie this Cripster is excited about seeing right now. Of course I am talking about the new X-Men movie. In the interest of full disclosure yes, this post is going to be slightly geeky; you can deal.

So why am I writing about the X-Men in a blog about disability issues? Well besides the fact that Professor X (arguably the most powerful individual on the planet in the X-Men world) rocks the sweetest wheelchair ever, the X-Men are part of my individual disability narrative. Every guy has his own comic book franchise interest. Maybe he hasn’t told you about it but he does. There is one hero or group that he loved growing up and now that the movies are coming out he can’t wait to see his hero on the big screen. We write the dates of the movie release on our calendars and rush out to see it but if we’re asked we blame our friends “oh a bunch of my buddies were going so I had to…yeah it was okay I guess. If you’re into that kind of sci-fi stuff”. Sound familiar? I was going to see X-Men on Thursday night at the midnight showing but I got blown off by the person I was supposed to see it with who went with other friends…summer drama, right? I have decided to write this post now instead of after I see it because I don’t want to ruin it for any one else but, yeah totally going tomorrow afternoon for sure!

So why the X-Men? If you know a lot about the story you can maybe piece together what I find appealing about it. If not let me set the scene for you. Imagine an adorable bright-eyed little boy (This is me. Yes, I was the cutest child ever. No, I’m not sure what happened either. Guess I peaked early). Watching the old-school X-Men cartoons was the highlight of my weekends and sick days from school. Then I hit middle school and early high school and there is a new X-Men cartoon about the X-Men as teenagers being teased for their “mutations” and feeling like outcasts for being different from everyone else. In the end these teenage “mutants” as they are called in the series, recognize their differences as making them superior and more powerful than the “normal” kids in their high school. Can you see why this franchise was appealing to a larval Cripster? Then they come out with the live action movies with story lines about "normal" humans trying to force a "cure" on the mutants to fix them (You can see this in the third video link). And the list goes on and one from here. I think there is actually a lot of disability narrative in this franchise. 

I’ve written about this before but I always had this fantasy that instead of being “disabled” I was actually a mutant. I wasn’t just some defective body sitting in middle school being teased for not playing soccer during recess. Some day Professor X was going to come to me and tell me that my unique body actually gifted me with super powers. And I would be able to join his team fighting crime with my super-human abilities. So what super power would I get? Would I fly? Teleportation? Super strength? Something with fire maybe? Well so far it has been nothing that cool. Every time I go to the airport all the workers ask if they can carry my stuff or give me rides in those cool carts so I guess maybe I have a little mind-control power that turns people into my workers…but I always turn them down when they offer. I am a benevolent mutant. And whenever I go to a mall or a restaurant or someplace public I get a fair amount of gawkers and people staring me up and down with a “Right, what’s this now?” kind of look. So I guess my superpower could be being extremely attractive. No…that’s not it. I guess being born without some key joints and having the rest of them be pretty arbitrary does make me fairly flexible.  Don’t want to brag but I’ve got some moves in Pilates class at the gym and I’m pretty much a beast on the dance floor because my body can move in ways that should not be possible.  I don’t think that counts as a superpower though…

I guess this explains why the X-Men have not asked me to join their ranks yet, but I’m still confident that I’ll be called into service someday.  Hey even the X-Men need a water boy, right?  So to all my readers with disabilities er, I’m sorry, superpowers, take pride in your ability. Don’t ever let someone tell you they are better than you because they are “normal” and you are different because different kicks normal’s butt every time. You rock and you are a superhero in training and never forget that.

To all my readers who aren’t fortunate enough to have superpowers, you are not completely out of luck. I have just the way for you to become a superhero for Iowans with disabilities. Imagine me as Professor X coming up to you right now and asking for your assistance in fighting evil (ableism) and joining the good guys (Disability Rights Iowa…obviously). This is your chance to help us make a difference in the lives of Iowans with disabilities. We have put together our own team at Disability Rights Iowa but our team of superheroes isn’t going out to fight bank robbers. Instead they are going out to tackle a larger foe; RAGBRAI.

Yes. Disability Rights Iowa will be riding in RAGBRAI again this year and we are looking for your help. Specifically I am looking for your help. Every person in our office has been asked to collect pledges of support for our team and I being the competitive person that I am would like to bring in a lot of pledges. In addition to using RAGBRAI to spread our message across Iowa to reach Iowans with disabilities across the state, we are going to use this as a fundraiser to help us continue providing our legal services to these Iowans for FREE. Yes, all of our services are provided to Iowans with disabilities for free and to continue helping as many people as we can, we are asking for your help. I am always bragging in the office about how many supportive readers I have so I know you guys will come through and help me out on winning the office competition, but more importantly, helping Iowans with disabilities receive the protection and representation that our office provides to them for no charge. The suggested pledge amount is $20 but you are free to pledge any amount you can. Every little bit helps. I know a lot of my readers are college students too and that is a lot of money in our world but next week just skip Starbucks for two days and pledge that $5 to helping our office increase our outreach to Iowans with disabilities all across the state.  

Please send your name address, e-mail and pledge amount to our office and we will follow up with you from there. I am currently in Malvern, Iowa and out of the office and will be for the next few months but if you know me personally feel free to get in touch with me and I’ll take care of this for you. Otherwise please email out Public Affairs Director, Scott Ourth, at sourth@disabilityrightsiowa.org with the information I listed above and he will take care of you from there. In your e-mail to him be sure to mention me or this blog and how great you think it is…you know, for office politics and all.

Iowa Partners in Preparedness Conference

Three years ago today a terrible tragedy struck the town of Parkersburg, Iowa. An EF 5 tornado hit the small town; killing dozens and hurting dozens more. On the anniversary of an event like this we can’t help but to look back and question if we have learned from Parkersburg. If a tornado hit your community would your city be ready? If a flood hit your business what would you do? If your home was hit by a natural disaster, what would you do? Where would you go? What would your family do? These are all difficult questions to ask because we don’t like to think about events like this happening to us, but they are questions you must be prepared to answer if you want to be ready for a natural disaster or other emergency.

These questions are even timelier now because of the string of natural disasters that have been hitting Iowa, the rest of the United States, and other places around the world. The tornados in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas the last few days, earthquakes in Japan, and floods in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have made us even more aware of how natural disasters can strike anywhere and at any time. That’s why it is so important to have answers to these questions. By having a disaster preparedness plan, you can help make sure that you are ready in case something like this happens in your city.

Of course, living with a disability complicates this scenario even more. Is your city storm shelter accessible? How would you get there if your car were damaged? How would you help your family members or neighbors with disabilities reach safety in time? Too often, people living with disabilities are not able to act in time during natural disasters because they, their families, and/or their communities are not prepared to accommodate people with disabilities during these times of need. That is why Disability Rights Iowa is partnering up with The ARC of Story County, The Iowa Department of Public Health, and enableUS to bring the Iowa Partners in Preparedness Conference to Des Moines this summer.

The Iowa Partners in Preparedness Conference will bring together emergency management, public health, human services and disability stakeholders from throughout Iowa to discuss the latest issues in preparing and responding to disability communities during emergencies and disasters.

This two day conference will take place June 22-23 at Des Moines University. This interactive and engaging seminar will examine some of the greatest challenges in inclusive emergency management and strategies to overcome those issues. The conference will focus on new FEMA sheltering guidelines, emergency evacuations for disability communities, and developing accessible transportation networks.  Other issues and topics of focus include collaborative community partnerships, information sharing networks and accessible communications.  Speakers from national, state and local government agencies and organizations will focus on programs that have worked in their communities as well as continued shortfalls and challenges that they experience.

Keynote speakers include representatives from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Iowa Department of Public Health, several representatives from FEMA, and many more.

For a full list of speakers, topics, a schedule of events, as well as registration information please go to the website HERE or follow the link below:

http://www.enableus.org/upcoming-events/IPP2011/IPP.html

I am also excited to announce that there are scholarships available for many attendees. If you are interested in applying for one of these scholarships or have any other questions about the Iowa Partner in Preparedness Conference please contact Charlene Joens in our office by e-mailing her at cjoens@disabilityrightsiowa.org