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| Emily O'Mahoney displays the new handicap logo. photo by Jack O'Mahoney |
by Emily Crampton
As Chapter President of Best
Buddies at Woburn Memorial High School, I had the amazing opportunity to attend
Best Buddies Leadership Conference in 2013, where I met some of my now closest
friends. There is truly nothing like spending a weekend surrounded by people
who are passionate about the same thing you are, and, for me, that happened to
be Best Buddies and the Disability Rights Movement.
Best
Buddies is a non-profit organization that matches students with intellectual
and developmental disabilities in one-to-one friendships with students without
those disabilities. Their mission is to “establish a global volunteer movement
that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment
and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental
disabilities.” This club helps integrate students with disabilities into the
community, and helps them form friendships that they may not otherwise have.
Throughout the school year, Best Buddies hosts monthly events for its members,
including holding a Halloween Dance, attending Best Buddies Massachusetts Prom and
spreading awareness about the Spread the Word to End the Word movement, which
is a movement dedicated to stopping the use of the word “retard” or “retarded”
as it is degrading to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Similarly,
the Disability Rights Movement’s mission is to empower people with disabilities
and to ensure that they have equal opportunities presented to those without
disabilities.
While
I was at the Best Buddies Leadership Conference in Indiana, I became very close
friends with people who shared my passion for Best Buddies. One of the most
remarkable people I met was Kayla O’Mahoney. When I met O’Mahoney, she was
going into her senior year at Maynard High School in Massachusetts, and was
Chapter President of her high school’s Best Buddies Chapter. She quickly became
one of my best friends. Her passion for Best Buddies inspired me, and it was
great to have someone to collaborate with for ideas for our chapters.
As
a senior at Maynard High School, O’Mahoney had to complete a senior project and
knew she wanted it to be about how people with disabilities are perceived in
our society. O’Mahoney shared her ideas on society’s view of people with
disabilities.
“The
prevalence of disabilities in nearing a quarter of our population. This is not
the time to deny and neglect that statistic; it is time to accept it and accept
what makes people different,” said O’Mahoney.
When
O’Mahoney’s grandfather sent her a Boston Globe article about the Accessible
Icon Project, she knew that it was perfect for her senior project. She took the
new handicap logo, in which the person in the wheelchair is slanted forward to
show action and to emphasize person before wheelchair, and went to her town
leaders to see if she could put the new logo in local parking lots. After she
got permission, she paid $85 for 10 stickers with the new logo which she placed
in her high school parking lot. O’Mahoney explained her goal for her senior
project.
“My
goal in carrying out the implantation of the Accessible Icon Project is not to
be politically correct. It is to help change society’s perspective on
differences. It is to shift society’s perspective towards the idea that we all
have ‘different’ abilities, not disabilities,” explained O’Mahoney.
O’Mahoney is now at Ursinus College,
but still wants to continue spreading the Accessible Icon Project throughout
her community here as well as at Ursinus. She is changing the view of society
that people with disabilities are “less” than those without them, which is a
truly remarkable thing. She continues to inspire me with her passion, and I am
very glad I met her through Best Buddies.
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