Disability Culture Plunge
Disability is common among people in different communities and societies. My experience with disability culture plunge was when I attended an event that was organized by the Adaptive Sports & Recreation Association in San Diego as part of my efforts to know more about people living with disabilities. The firm is not for profit organization located in San Diego, California. Its role is to advance and ensure that the rights of people who live with disabilities are respected and honored. It empowers them through various sporting activities such as tennis, wheelchair competition, and basketball (Tow et al., 2020). The organization comes up with different policies to elevate the lives of such people within the purview and precincts of the rights movement. It acts as a bridge through which disabled people address the various challenges that they face in society. The address of the organization is PO Box 153792, San Diego, California 92195-3792, United States. More information about the entity can be obtained from https://www.adaptivesportsandrec.org/aboutus. Its telephone number is 619-336-1806.
The activities that I carried out in the organization concerning the cultural plunge was that I attended various interactive sessions with people from cultures that I had no information about. I had a conversation with the disabled people who were homeless. The main aim of the plunge was to get in touch with them and learn about their culture because it was different from where I come from. I wanted to understand their experiences in terms of living, understand their values, biases, and effective responses. I noted various types of disabilities in the course of my culture plunge. They included vision impairment, where some were deaf, and others would hear partially. Others had an intellectual disability, where they showed signs of autism and brain injury. The more significant proportion of the population had physical disabilities. These people only walked and moved from one place with the help of crutches and wheelchairs.
Question A
Initially, I had various assumptions about people living with disabilities. I thought that when a person developed a disability, their desires and dreams died, and they could not participate in any sporting activity. I always devalued them and believed that they had no goals. I thought they would not participate in anything constructive that would help in the progress of the society. Once I participated in the cultural plunge, I noted that disability was not inability and the disabled still had dreams and goals that they wanted to achieve in life. They would participate in games like other normal people. Secondly, before taking part in the plunge, the only thing that I offered the disabled was pity and I thought that they lived in abject poverty because they would not carry out productive activities. However, after participating in the plunge, I found out that I was wrong because, some of these people had big investments and their lives were even better compared to those of people without disability.
Question B
From the experience, I noted that people living with disability were influential in their own way. They learn and get equipped through hard ways and one can only understand that through continuous interaction with them. The cultural plunge helped me realize that happiness is intrinsically motivated and even broken bodies can find happiness. The social model relates well with the plunge because it intends to remove different barriers that limit people living with disability from achieving different goals. From continuous interaction, I also found out that, these people were even happier and they did not deserve pity from anyone. All that they need is support and equal opportunities like the normal people, and they are capable of performing better and posting great results which can exceed those of people not under the York of disability.
Question C
Moral concept applied in my experience with the disabled people. The concept talks about the pity and embarrassment that disabled people go through. However, as I continued to relate with them and saw them engage on the sporting activities, I changed that mindset completely. The second concept is that of tragedy. It denotes that disability was as a result of various events in life and that why the disabled needed pity (Anastasiou et al., 2016). I had always lived to pity and sympathize with them. However, the event changed the perception and now I can say they are normal people who can do everything.
Question D
The assistive technologies that were used include; instructors for those with hearing difficulties to help them understand what was going on in the course of event. Secondly wheelchairs helped those with physical disabilities to cope up with the situation. Clutches also played a key role in enhancing movement of people with disability on one leg. These technologies enhanced their movement and helped them to maneuver as they participated in the sporting activities.
Question E
In future, I will contribute to the lives of disabled by acting as a motivation tool to help them move from self-pity to unlocking their capabilities and potentials to aid in the achievement of their dreams. I will also fight for their rights so that they can be offered equal opportunities to help them know their hidden potentials and grow them. Through doing that, they will have helped me achieve my vision of seeing many disabled people in my society become successful.
Question F
Taking GS400 changed my perception completely towards the disabled people. I realized how important it was to empower them rather than sympathizing and pitying them. I understood different ways that I would use to empower and remove the barriers that hindered them from achieving various goals and dreams in life. With the knowledge, I endeavor to help the disabled in my community which will be a major boost to my career.
Photos of the Event
Disabled person playing tennis at the event
Disabled people playing basketball at the event
The disabled in Wheelchair competition at the event
References
Anastasiou, D., Kauffman, J. M., & Michail, D. (2016). Disability in multicultural theory: Conceptual and social justice issues. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 27(1), 3-12.
Tow, Stephanie, Joslyn Gober, and Maureen R. Nelson. (2020) “Adaptive Sports, Arts, Recreation, and Community Engagement.” Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics 31.1: 143-158.