One Person at a Time

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings." Nelson Mandela

Every now and again, I pull out my clay jar. I've been working on it for most of my life, and I suspect it'll never be done. I started it when I was a child. Since then, my jar has undergone many changes. Thanks to many hours of painstaking, backbreaking work, my clay jar has morphed from a tiny lumpen mass of brown goop to a breathtaking vision of loveliness.

I've shaped, molded, and finally perfected my jar. Or at least, my vision of it is clear and unobstructed. Now, as I stand back and survey my creation, my fingers get itchy again. Scratching the surface isn't good enough. I need to get into the corners and scour deep within it. After all, this is my Dream Jar Secret Hiding Place. Kind of like the jars you keep in your kitchen that hide money or important documents. Only, this jar contains my Big Dream.

In an earlier post, I talked about my penchant for performing in front of my bedroom mirror. But, like my imaginary tiny lump of clay, the dream of being a stage performer was really the first blush of a much grander fantasy. When it comes right down to it, all of us just want to do something of substance. We want to make a difference in the world.

Well, today is Blog Action Day - a day when over 7,000 bloggers will unite to "stand up against poverty," so to speak. It's an initiative to "change the conversation." To change the tired voice within that whispers in one's ear, "Me? What can one person possibly do to change the world?"

On October 17-19, 2008, Stand Up Against Poverty - International Day for the Eradication of Poverty will be in full swing. "This year, the main focus of Stand Up is Take Action, to ensure governments worldwide hear our demands to end poverty and inequality. Last year, more than 76,000 Canadians took part in more than 500 Stand Up events across the country. They were part of a mobilization against poverty that had more than 43 million participants worldwide."

I read that "a number of surveys have found that children at the lower end of the socio-economic scale had poorer health and developmental outcomes than children in the middle, and that children at the top of the socio-economic scale had better results still." In developing countries, "98% of children with disabilities receive no education, and 26 million people with an intellectual disability live on less than $1 a day."

Sometimes our knee-jerk reaction is to pull back in horror. "It's too big...too pervasive...so what in the world will it matter if one person performs one action?" I can hear my own voice whimpering in the dark, the covers pulled over my head.

"Simplify, simplify," said Thoreau. "One step, one action, today, is all it takes!" What is the one step, one action, I could begin putting into motion? If I have a passion for children - specifically special needs children - but I'm overwhelmed, confused, frozen in place by too much information, maybe I could join an organization that's focused on helping to change attitudes, to educate, and positively improve, mainstream social attitudes. Group lobbying, or sending out e-mails, faxes, letters to the government. Give blood, or organize a free lunch/food distribution. Many organizations have campaigns that focus on making poverty history. The Stand Up Against Poverty website has a list of "actions/activities aimed at development/welfare; petitions and communications/popular education; and mass action/popular mobilization/dissent."

As for me, my clay jar is only half full, I realize. I still have a long way to go, and time is running out. Today, though, I can take one step. It's time to "take action to end poverty and inequality, one person, one step, one heart, at a time."

(See also Poverty in Canada: The New Reality Facing Canadians
Dawn Ontario Disabled Women's Network Ontario
Grow Up Free from Poverty



This post is a part of Blog Action Day '08 - Poverty

The Power of Words

Yesterday I grabbed our local paper and headed out to the backyard. Splashed across the front page was a report of the discovery of a giant hogweed in our area. I held my breath as I read of the potential harm it can inflict on those who come in contact with it.

Apparently, "severe burns can usually result in blistering and painful dermatitis. Blisters can develop into purplish or blackened scars, sometimes up to 48 hours after exposure. In some cases...eye contact can lead to temporary or possibly permanent blindness." Gulp...

We are cautioned to wear protective gear when gardening. It's an invasive weed, taking no prisoners, and will take over your garden if you're not vigilant. Uproot it at the first sign of its presence.

I dropped the paper and spent the next couple of hours in an extensive reconnaissance tour of our garden. Who knows, this giant hogweed could be lurking in the shadows, supposedly minding its own business. But, a la Day of the Triffids, it could be plotting a hostile takeover of our lovely garden. Visions of mutant hogweeds systematically cutting a swath through our community danced in my head.

Weeds are stealthy, sometimes taking on the look of the surrounding flora. I know better, though. They may masquerade as another member of the flower family, but they are poisonous plants, slowly choking the life out of a thriving garden. Just as a gardener will create diversity in a garden, in order to encourage a flourishing plant community, so she will uproot noxious uninvited guests.

Maybe I just need to understand where the weeds are coming from. After all, it's possible they don't mean any harm. In fact, it's possible my sense of humour needs a drastic retuning - a complete overhaul, perhaps? - and if I can see the funny side of their presence in my garden, we'll all get along much better. The weeds will take pity on its flowering neighbours, and therefore decide to play fair.

No, on second thought, even if they're unaware of the damage they're inflicting on the community, we know better. It's best to uproot them, and in their place plant something that will only have a positive effect on the environment.

Like the damage to a child's self-esteem when he hears the r-word repeatedly used against him. I read in a blog that "research featured in Harvard Mental Health Letter and published in The American Journal of Psychiatry looked at the damage that hostile words, and or yelling, can have on a child. They found "words are weapons that can cause lasting wounds..."

So it behooves us to protect our children from the negative, hostile elements in their lives, and plant them in a positive, loving, and supportive environment.

"Words have great power to heal or hurt." The Special Olympics reminds us "our choice of language frames how we think about others. It is time to respect and value people with intellectual disabilities. It is time to accept and welcome them as our friends and neighbours. Change the conversation...Stop using the r-word."

Instead, plant a different word in the community: Respect.

Don't Fence Me In

My neighbour just put up a fence. I'm a little sorry to see it, though. Every morning, I would sit at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, while deer, wild turkeys, and other wildlife strolled, unimpeded, through the neighbourhood. For the first time in years, the binoculars and camera weren't gathering dust on a closet shelf.

But I need to be realistic: cattle will soon share this land, and I see the value of keeping them safely penned in, while keeping out unwanted visitors, such as our overly inquisitive Golden Retriever. The cattle will have plenty of room to roam, and I won't have to spend many nail-biting hours fretting over the garden we've been carefully cultivating all summer.

Besides, our neighbour went to a lot of trouble to make the fence aesthetically pleasing, not just functional.

But what about the fences we erect to keep people effectively locked out of our communities? There are plenty of subtle, and not so subtle, ways of keeping 'unwanted visitors' out of the mainstream pool. Like perpetuating negative stereotypes of groups of people, for example.

I was reading an entry from Barriers, Bridges and Books, an excellent blog on disability advocacy and cultural change. For the last couple of weeks, the author has been discussing the importance of the disability community coming together as a whole, with one voice, in response to a "movie coming out this August called Tropic Thunder that bandies the R-word all over the place and describes the experience of having an intellectual disability as being "moronic, stupid, dumb and imbecilic.""

We've come a long way, baby, but in 2008, a big-budget comedy is still attempting to keep the intellectually disabled 'in their place'.

But what, exactly, is that place?

As the author pointed out, "An actor does NOT have to accept stupidity, being a total imbecile, etc. from themselves to portray someone with a cognitive disability. This is NOT what it is like to have a disability."

Someone once said, "The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy." But isn't there a happy medium? Don't we need boundaries, both within ourselves as well as in society?

Boundaries are necessary, but they shouldn't be used to fence people in. Particularly when the people are being treated like cattle and systematically herded into a no-man's land of ridicule, indifference, and social isolation.