According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people around the world are living with disabilities. Experiencing an emergency was different for them compared with people without disabilities. Going back to “the normal” and fastening the safety measures are periods of key importance and interest. Business, students, transportation and every sector are literally getting back to their basic targets and operations, hand in hand with the experiences from the time of the safety measures.
Youth with disabilities as role-models
The young people with disabilities are a multidimensional part of our society. They are adolescents or youth in their early 20s; they are maturing, searching for who they truly are; they have intimate desires; they are searching for a professional pathway and much more. People with disabilities often spend a lot of time in isolation. Yes, the periods of solitude can be overcome, but the valuable lesson of how to be alone – so that you could reach a better place afterwards – remains.
A multitude of young blind people, wheelchair users and people with learning disabilities share that they felt as a role model, helping others to cope with solitude and isolation at the time of the pandemic. Knowing their experience helped others to feel better. We are starting with this specific detail, because UNICEF, the World Health Organization as well as a lot of NGOs of people with disabilities came to the same idea - safety measures were a lens which zooms in on the inequalities and the inaccessibility of the environment for people with disabilities.