This is national Disability Awareness Week and to coincide with it the Transition Year students in Holy Faith Secondary School, Clontarf, Dublin, are holding their own Disability Awareness Week.
The school is already involved with the local Central Remedial Clinic, where, for a number of years, the students have been taking part in a Fast Friends Programme, involving able-bodied and disabled students working and learning together. This programme is probably the largest of its kind in Ireland, with almost 100 students participating in activities with the students every week. The activities vary from week to week, depending on the week at hand, like Easter or Christmas, but generally they include arts and crafts, woodwork, drama, cookery and surfing the Internet.
The organiser, Transition Year co-ordinator Yvonne O'Toole, says: "It is important for people to know that the Transition Year students are the same age as the CRC students, which is 15,16 and 17, and they are not there to help them - it is a learning experience for all. It is a social visit where we are all equal. Sometimes we cook for each other or we might play a table quiz. We are not there to help them, we are there to link with them; no-one is better than anyone else. The CRC children teach us as much as we teach them, although they would be better with computers than us because they would have needed them more through life."
O'Toole feels that people still have problems relating to those who suffer from an illness so that is why she decided to arrange this week's activities. "The aim of the week is to simply take the stigma away from disability. Disability affects everybody in the community. A person could walk out her front door in the morning and be knocked down by a car or bus minutes later. That person could then be left disabled, so it is better to know as much as possible about the situation than nothing at all," O'Toole argues. Many people would regard being disabled as being helpless. This, she says, is simply a fear of the unknown. "Maybe by running the disability awareness week people who come to meet the students of the CRC will see for themselves that disability is not something to be afraid of."
Many different types of disability awareness programmes will be taking place at the school during the week. Numerous debates and discussions on the Fast Friends programme will be included and guest speakers such as MEP Mary Banotti (on disability awareness in Europe), Fine Gael leader John Bruton, and TDs Ivor Callely and Richard Bruton, will be present. President McAleese is sending a special message to the school.
There will be speakers from the Central Remedial Clinic, the Irish Council for People with Disabilities, Muscular Dystrophy Ireland, the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, Cerebral Palsy Ireland, Down's Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis Ireland. Those participating will see the different displays set up by the CRC and Holy Faith students. Parents of disabled children will also be talking about their experiences. O'Toolesays: "Many people will find that the differences between the children are actually not that extreme." During the week students will learn braille and sign language. A short story competition, poetry and art competitions, and a lotto draw, will be held.
Dublin Bus will be there to show off one of its new "dipping" buses designed to accommodate disabled people. Up to 40 of these buses will be on the streets soon. In the future, the aim of the Fast Friends programme is to amalgamate classes of able-bodied and disabled students. "Nothing is going to be done quickly," says Yvonne O'Toole, but she does hope to be "one of the frontrunners of the integration programme before the end of the year".
