4 ways to design a disability-friendly future

Meghan Hussey has never known life without disability. Her sister Erin is autistic and also has intellectual disabilities, and their family held that different is not less. The world outside did not share that value. In middle school Hussey brought in a video of Erin learning to communicate with speech and sign in an inclusive classroom. A teacher told her the faculty had decided against showing it, to “protect” her from classmates who would make fun of her sister. Rude comments, a slur used casually by friends and judgmental stares taught her what stigma is.

As a student in Beijing she interned with a disability rights organization and saw that her family’s experience was part of something far larger. People with Disabilities number more than a billion, roughly 15 percent of everyone on earth. Of the 240 million disabled children in the world, about half have never been to school. Hussey now works with Special Olympics, and in every country she finds the same barrier underneath the others: negative attitudes toward disability. Exclusion has a price as well. The International Labour Organization puts the cost to low and middle income countries at three to seven percent of gross domestic product.

Hussey names four things each of us can do. First, examine our own attitudes. Stereotypes still tie disability to pity, and segregated systems leave many people uneasy around People with Disabilities. Inclusion, she says, is “a matter of justice and equity, not charity.” Second, choose to include. Many countries have disability laws on the books, yet a wide gap remains between policy and practice, so each of us can press for those laws to be carried out and look at where we hold the power to change things. Third, recognize that disability is part of every field of work. Women with disabilities are at greater risk of gender based violence, and People with Disabilities have poorer health outcomes, often because stigma and poor access to care stand in the way and not because of the disability itself.

People with Disabilities lead, and the rest of us listen and follow. The fourth step is the one Hussey calls most important: listen to People with Disabilities themselves. Her colleague Ben, who is legally blind and has an intellectual disability, persuaded the District of Columbia Department of Transportation to add voice and sound to the crosswalks near their office. Brina, in the Philippines, whose parents were told not to set their expectations too high after her Down syndrome diagnosis, now assists in a preschool classroom and serves UNESCO as a champion for inclusive education. Haseeb, an autistic young person in Pakistan, has spoken on a TEDx stage against the stigma he has faced. This is nothing about us without us in practice.

Inclusion is not a favor done for other people. It has to come from every one of us.

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By: Meghan Hussey