ADAPT

ADAPT, 

(originalmente: Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit.)

ADAPT is a grassroots United States disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states. It is known for being part of the militantwing of the disability rights movement due to its history of nonviolent direct action in order to bring attention to the lack of civil rights the disability community has. However, ADAPT also practices legislative policy advocacy, grassroots education and mobilization, and individual members may engage in legal advocacy, as in the case of individual ADAPT members suing the Chicago Transit Authorityin the 1980s.

ADAPT got its start at the Atlantis Community in Denver, Colorado, in 1983. The Atlantis Community was started by the ReverendWade Blank, a nondisabled former nursing home recreational director who assisted several residents to move out and start their own community. Blank is also given much credit for helping ADAPT get started. Originally, the name was an acronym that stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. The group's initial issue was to get wheelchair accessible lifts on buses.

Throughout the 1980s, the campaign for bus lifts expanded out from Denver to cities nationwide. ADAPTers became well known for their tactic of immobilizing buses to draw attention to the need for lifts. Wheelchair users would stop a bus in front and back, and others would get out of their chairs and crawl up the steps of an inaccessible bus to dramatize the issue. Not only city buses but interstate bus services like Greyhound were targeted.

By the end of the decade, after protests and lawsuits, ADAPT finally saw bus lifts required by law as passed by the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. At that time, the group began looking for the next logical step in disability rights advocacy, while ensuring follow-through of transportation provisions in the ADA.

In 1993, Wade Blank died. In 1991, ADAPT had decided to make community supports for people with disabilities its major issue. Many members of ADAPT had struggled for years to leave nursing homes and institutions where they had been warehoused. They felt it was important to work to free other people with disabilities unable to get out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADAPT

Wade Blank, pionero activista del movimiento de derechos de personas con discapacidad

Wade Blank, "Atlantis Community" y ADAPT

Wade Blank (1940, 1993) fue un lider activista del movimiento de derechos de personas con discapacidad, ayudo a establecer la "Atlantis Community" uno de los primeros centros de vida independiente y ADAPT.

My friend and mentor, Wade Blank, was one of the founders of Atlantis Community, an independent living center in Denver, Colorado, and the national, grassroots disability rights organization, ADAPT. He was a Presbyterian minister, but you would have never guessed it from his looks, or his demeanor. He wasn't "preachy" at all, but very liberal and open-minded. He accepted everyone for who they were, and hated injustice and intolerance.

Wade was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Canton, Ohio. He began his life of social justice activism while he was in college. At the time, he was very conservative, and a supporter of Barry Goldwater. His college room-mate, an African American, accused him of being a racist, which Wade hotly denied. One day, his room-mate told Wade that he was going down to Selma, Alabama to march with Dr. King, and invited him (actually, he dared him) to come along. Wade went, and his life was changed forever!

I met Wade in 1987, while still living in Chicago, my home town. He was visiting from Denver and was present at the monthly meeting of Chicago ADAPT. At the time, I was very new to ADAPT, and had only been around for a year, working at the local level.

At the end of the meeting, I was introduced to Wade, and we immediately hit it off. He had studied for the ministry in Chicago, and had also lived and worked on the South Side, in the very neighborhood where I was born! I also discovered that we had three important things in common - both of us were activists to the core of our beings, we loved to read, and we both loved cats. Though soft-spoken, Wade loved jokes and pranks. He was a natural teacher with much wisdom to share.

Almost one year later, I decided that I wanted to work for Atlantis Community, which houses the national ADAPT headquarters. I called Wade, and asked if there were any job openings. He invited me to come visit him, his wife, Molly, and their family and apply for a position. Unfortunately, there were no openings for positions that I was qualified for in Denver at the time, so Wade suggested that I go to Colorado Springs and apply for a job at the Atlantis/ADAPT office there. I went and applied, then, returned home to Chicago.

A few days later, there was news from Colorado Springs - I had been accepted for a position there! I rode the Greyhound bus to Colorado, and decided to go to Denver first, and see Wade and Molly. Though I arrived unannounced, they hugged me, and welcomed me warmly. After dinner, I took the bus to Colorado Springs and arrived at my new place. After a few hours, the significance of the date finally hit me - it was December 4, 1988 - Wade's birthday!

After working for two and a half years in the Colorado Springs office, I was finally able to transfer to the Denver office, and work directly with Wade. I enjoyed working with him because he was caring, passionate, and patient. He taught me leadership skills that I still use to this day. The most important thing that he taught me was to be mindful of my health. He would say, "Anita, you have to take care of yourself, or you are no good to the movement".

In February of 1993, Wade and his family went on vacation to Todos Santos, Mexico. It was the first vacation that he had taken in fourteen years. I remember saying goodbye and wishing him a happy vacation as he was leaving the office. He gave me a hug and joked, "Hold down the fort". It would be the last time that I saw him.

On Monday, February 15, 1993, Wade, Molly, and the kids went to the beach for one last swim. They were flying home later in the day. Wade and Lincoln, who was 8, went swimming while Molly and little Caitlin relaxed on the beach. Lincoln was caught in an undertow, and Wade tried to rescue him, but they both drowned. That was the saddest day of my life.

Though 17 years has passed since his death, I still miss Wade. He was a friend, mentor and father figure to me. I miss his smile, his jokes, and our long talks on activism and turning anger into positive action. His legacy lives on though ADAPT, and he will never be forgotten.

There is more about Wade in these articles:

A Brief History of ADAPT and Who We Are

My Journey with ADAPT

http://voices.yahoo.com/wade-blank-memories-friend-mentor-5478913.html?cat=49

Fred Fay

Fred Fay, Su historia

Frederick A. Fay (1944 – 2011) fue uno de los líderes pioneros del movimiento de derechos de las personas con discapacidad. 

Through a combination of direct advocacy, grassroots organizing among the various disability rights communities, building cross-disability coalitions between disparate disability organizations, and using technology to connect otherwise isolated disability constituencies, Fay worked diligently to raise awareness and pass legislation advancing civil rights and independent living opportunities for people with disabilities across the United States. He won the 1997 Henry B. Betts Award for outstanding achievement in civil rights for Americans with disabilities. Fay was recognized for "flat-out advocacy" over several decades. He helped lead the nationwide efforts by disability advocates to secure passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.[1]

Jonathan Young, chairman of the National Council on Disability, said, “Fred was one of the great early pioneers in disability advocacy...the depth and breadth of his knowledge and commitment was surpassed only by the life he lived and the legacy he leaves behind."[2]

Frederick Allan Fay, Ph.D., was born on September 12, 1944, and raised in Washington, DC. At age 16, he sustained a cervical spinal cord injury, and started using a manual wheelchair for mobility. At 17, he launched his disability advocacy career by co-founding "Opening Doors," a counseling and information center.[3]

Fay attended the University of Illinois, one of the nation's first wheelchair-accessible universities. A few years later, he was a founder of the Boston Center for Independent Living,[4] the Massachusetts Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, and of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities.[5]

Fay worked for many years at the Tufts New England Medical Center, until syringomyelia made it impossible for him to sit upright. For the past quarter century, Fay has worked from his home in Concord, Massachusetts. In the early years, he used a headset to speak and listen on the phone, plus a personal computer mounted on a stand near his motorized bed. He had an electronic workstation suspended over the bed.

It was from there that Fay launched the Justice for All forum that compiles and distributes disability rights information to his wide network of friends and allies.

One of the continuing visionaries of the disability rights movement, Fay provided ongoing leadership to disability advocates. He was recognized in the movement for his irrepressible enthusiasm and optimism.

Fay made a short video with another disability rights notable, Roland W. Sykes, founder of DIMENET.

Fay died on August 20, 2011, at his home in Concord.[6][7][8][9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Fay

Lives Worth Living,

La historia del movimiento de derechos de las personas con discapacidad en Estados Unidos

Lives Worth Living follows one man's struggle to survive after a spinal cord injury and his role in the earliest days of the Disability Rights Movement.

Fred Fay's life proves that one man can change the world, even though he has to lie flat on his back just to stay alive. Lives Worth Living looks at Fay's struggle to survive after a spinal cord injury and the small group of dedicated activists who formed the Disability Rights Movement to drive the nation towards equal rights.

The late Fred Fay survived a devastating spinal cord injury when he was only 16, and turned his misfortune into a movement for equality. With a small group of dedicated activists, he spearheaded the disability rights movement and changed the face of American society.

Learn more about "Independent Lens":

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens

Watch "Independent Lens" films online:

http://video.pbs.org/program/1218239994/

Ed Roberts

Ed Roberts, su visión

"Padre del movimiento de Vida Independiente y del Movimiento de derechos de las personas con discapacidad"

Edward Verne Roberts (1939, 1995) fue un Activista norteamericano. Fue el primer estudiante con una discapacidad severa en atender a la universidad de Berkeley, California. Fue un líder pionero en el movimiento de derechos de las personas con discapacidad.

Ed Roberts is often called the father of the disability rights movement. His career as an advocate began when a high school administrator threatened to deny his diploma because he had not completed driver's education and physical education. After attending the College of San Mateo he was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley. He had to fight for the support he needed from the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation to attend college because his rehabilitation counselor thought he was too severely disabled to ever get a job. On learning that Roberts had a severe disability, one of the UC Berkeley deans famously commented, "We've tried cripples before and it didn't work." Other Berkeley administrators supported his admission, and expressed the opinion that the University should be doing more.

Roberts matriculated in 1962, two years before the Free Speech Movement transformed Berkeley into a hotbed of student protest. When his search for housing met resistance in part because of the 800 pound iron lung that he slept in at night, the director of the campus health service offered him a room in an empty wing of the Cowell Hospital. Roberts accepted on the condition that the area where he lived be treated as dormitory space, not a medical facility. His admission broke the ice for other students with severe disabilities who joined him over the next few years at what evolved into the Cowell Residence Program.

The group developed a sense of identity and elan, and began to formulate a political analysis of disability. They began calling themselves the "Rolling Quads" to the surprise of some non-disabled observers who had never before heard a positive expression of disability identity. In 1968 when two of the Rolling Quads were threatened with eviction from the Cowell Residence Program by a Rehabilitation Counselor, the Rolling Quads organized a successful 'revolt' that led to the counselor's transfer.

Their success on campus inspired the group to begin advocating for curb cuts, opening access to the wider community, and to create the Physically Disabled Student's Program (PDSP) - the first student led disability services program in the country. Ed Roberts flew 3000 miles from California to Washington DC with no respiratory support in order to attend a conference at the start-up of the federal TRIO program through which the PDSP later secured funding. The PDSP provided services including attendant referral and wheelchair repair to students at the University, but it was soon taking calls from people with disabilities with the same concerns who were not students.

He earned B.A. (1964) and M.A. (1966) degrees from UC Berkeley in Political Science. He became an official Ph.D. candidate (C.Phil.) in political science at Berkeley in 1969, but did not complete his Ph.D.[2]

The need to serve the wider community led to the creation of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living (CIL), the first independent living service and advocacy program run by and for people with disabilities. Contrary to common belief, he was not the founder of the Berkeley CIL, nor the CIL's first executive director. He was teaching political science at an "alternative college," but returned to Berkeley to assume leadership of the fledgling organization. He guided the CIL's rapid growth during a decisive time for the emerging disability rights movement. The CIL provided a model for a new kind of community organization designed to address the needs and concerns of people with a wide range of disabilities.

In 1976, newly elected Governor Jerry Brown appointed Ed Roberts Director of the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation - the same agency that had once labelled him too severely disabled to work. He served in that post until 1983. When California politics again shifted to the right, he returned again to Berkeley where he co-founded the World Institute on Disability with Judy Heumann and Joan Leon.

Roberts died on March 14, 1995, at the age of 56.

His papers are held at the Bancroft Library.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_(activist)

Segregator Project

Segregator Project

Hazlo en tu ciudad!

www.segregatorproject.org

La campaña Segregator Project:

No tiene sentido que las oportunidades de una sociedad obedezcan a las características físicas de los ciudadanos. ¿No deberían todos poder parquear en todas partes? ¿No deberían todos poder entender una película, aunque algunos sean sordos? ¿No deberían todos los letreros poder ser leídos  por todos aunque algunos sean ciegos? ¿No deberían las ciudades adaptarse a las personas en vez de las personas adaptarse a las ciudades? Sí, deberían!!

Si fue indignante permitir fuentes de agua "solo para los negros," y permitir el voto "solo para los hombres”, ¿no es también indignante permitir tantas cosas etiquetadas "solo para los discapacitados"?

La “Discapacidad” es un Movimiento de Derecho Civil y su objetivo es una verdadera inclusión para todos.

Por eso con experiencias reales vamos a hacer que el mundo entienda cómo se siente vivir en una ciudad que segrega. Con un toque de humor sabrán lo que significa ser excluido o discriminado.

Nos cansamos de vivir en un mundo que tolera la segregación. Si la Convención sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad de Naciones Unidas se queda en papel, todo será en blanco y negro para siempre.

Así que bienvenido al Segregator Project.

El video muestra a un personaje llamado “Segregator” poniendo señales para que parqueaderos, mesas o teléfonos públicos sean de uso exclusivo para personas bajas, altas,  gordas, flacas, con discapacidad o con bigotes, haciendo una parodia de las señales de discapacidad.
“Segregator” luego se encarga de obligar a las personas a cumplir sus señales, echándolas o haciendo que cambien de lugar.
Despues se muestran las reacciones de las personas que fueron segregadas; algunas responden con sorpresa y otras con indignación.
Finalmente “Segregator” les entrega un volante que dice estan siendo filmados para una cámara escondida para un experimento que estudia la exclusión y la segregación que viven a diario los discapacitados.
Las personas cuando se enteran que han sido y están siendo filmados ríen y saludan a la cámara. 

Házlo en casa

Cuando termines

Guárdalo en formato .mov y envíalo por rapidshare a: segregatorproject@arcangeles.org

Si tienes preguntas, por favor escribe al mismo correo.

Discapacidad y Derechos

  
   Entendemos la discapacidad
   no como una maldición 

   ni como una enfermedad,
   sino como un movimiento de derecho civil!

   Entendemos que la discapacidad no la tiene la persona
   sino que resulta de la interacción
   entre personas con deficiencias o limitaciones 

   y las barreras debidas a actitudes y/o entornos
   que evitan su participación plena y efectiva
   en la sociedad en igualdad de condiciones con las demás.

   Asumamos el deber de cambiar la cultura,

   de avanzar hacia un mundo mas inclusivo.