'Dear Everybody' is coming to a school near you
Photo and story by Louise Kinross
Young adults with disabilities are going into Toronto schools to talk about disability and inclusion with children from junior kindergarten through high school.
The program is part of Holland Bloorview’s Dear Everybody campaign—which began three years ago with an open letter from children with disabilities and their families that pushed readers to confront their own biases about disability and human value. This year, the campaign challenged companies to include people with disabilities in their ads.
Polina Kosavera coordinates the school program, and speaks to students about her own experience with ongoing symptoms from a concussion. This week she’s accompanied by Zak Priest, a former Holland Bloorview client who has cerebral palsy. “We try to arrange it so there’s a speaker with a visible disability and a speaker with a less visible disability,” Polina says. The other speaker is Cristina Malana, a member of Holland Bloorview’s youth advisory who has an acquired brain injury.
“We make the presentation less of a lesson and more of a conversation, and the kids get to know us,” Polina says. “We share our stories and challenge misconceptions about what a person with a disability can or can’t do.”
The hour-long session can be tailored for a class or a full-school assembly, and ends with questions and answers. “That’s my favourite part,” Zak says. “I leave the door wide open for kids to ask me anything. It could be ‘What’s your favourite thing to have on pizza?’ or as personal as ‘How do you take a poop?’ One student asked me what video games I’m playing right now. That opened up the questions to so much else, because they realized they were talking to someone just like anyone else.”
Zak met his wife Kelsey at Holland Bloorview’s three-week university-based independence program, and later worked in employment-related research here. When he was younger, Zak was a Holland Bloorview peer mentor to other kids with disabilities. “A lot of them wanted advice on friend-making and being more outgoing. I’ve always been lucky in that I’m very social and made connections. Working with these kids, I realized the challenges weren’t about them, but due to the outside world perceiving them differently. Dear Everybody is about breaking that social stigma.”
Students with disabilities who attend a school hosting the presentation are welcome to take part. For example, one student who uses a letter board to communicate demonstrated it with his mother, Zak says. “The kids asked him questions and it was a fantastic experience for them to see what he had to say. He spelled out what he wanted to say, and cracked jokes. I hope it really opened up his peers’ minds.”
Polina notes that they share a call-to-action on ways students can be more inclusive, but before doing so, ask the kids for their own ideas. “They always come up with great answers like ‘We can invite everyone to play,’ or ‘If someone looks like they need help, we can ask,’ or ‘Don’t judge.’
Polina says that since doing the first two presentations in November, the program has been “spreading like wildfire. Principals and parents have been telling others about it, and we have two presentations a week lined up for February. We want to reach as many kids as possible in the Greater Toronto Area, and are very flexible with whatever a particular school needs.”
A lot of the knowledge shared in the workshop comes from the Dear Everybody website and the position paper that was launched with it. To find out about bringing the Dear Everybody School Outreach Program to your school, call Polina at 416-425-6220, ext. 3542, or e-mail pkosareva@hollandbloorview.ca.
