The Bellevue College Disability Resource Center has come up with ideas and projects to promote the awareness of Disability Month around the campus. A twist on the ongoing PostSecret community art project, the Disability Postcard Project aimed to voice both able bodied and disabled students’ ideas of what “disability” means to them. Through anonymous postcard art, students can reveal their own experiences and attitudes towards disability in their lives, on campus, and in society. Submissions were due Friday, Oct. 24, by 5 p.m. All submitted postcards are on display in the cafeteria this last week of Disability Pride Month, Oct. 27-30.
Dropboxes were available in B233, Multicultural Services, D204, the Academic Success Center, B125, the Financial Aid Office, and the Disability Resource Center, B132.
Along with the Disability Postcard Project, other events that occured during Disability Pride Month included a “Microsoft Word and Accessibility” presentation, “Veteran’s Administration Medical Center: Veteran’s Resource Fair & Conference,” and Lydia Brown’s “Beyond the Imagined Normal: Disability, Pride & Culture” speech.
The Disability Pride event “Beyond the Imagined Normal: Disability, Pride & Culture” will be held on Oct. 30 in Carlson Theater from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. Funding received from clubs and programs like the Disability Resource Center, the honor society Phi Theta Kappa and the Associated Student Government has allowed Bellevue College the chance to bring the renowned speaker Lydia Brown to our campus from Georgetown University. A noted intersectional social justice and social model of disability activist, Brown is published and runs a hugely successful, world-renowned blog called “Autistic Hoya.”
As an autistic woman herself, Brown supports the idea of “Nothing About Us Without Us” and the LGBTQ movement. The event will mostly revolve around the essence of social and disability justice and how these things can be combated by those who are are negatively affected by the associated injustices. “We are okay with what we are and who we are,” stated Susan Gjolmesli, the director of the Disability Resource Center.
Plan to arrive early because the event has been advertised and made available to the public. During the reception which follows, there might also be arrangements for guests to interact with Brown directly.