Access Living Youth Center

Make Your Mark!

What does "making your mark" mean? It means making a difference! Young people with disabilities can make a big difference in disability rights.

In our world today, justice is not a reality for people with disabilities. People working for disability rights have a lot of work to do.

Every day, we are faced with unfair treatment, simply because we talk differently, we walk differently, we don’t read well, we get sick a lot, we can’t hear. We believe that this is not right and we want to change that.

If you want to change the world so that people with disabilities are respected for our full humanity, we must unite the power of all our people.

To unite our power, we have to get fired up, and realize that the world can be a better place – for all people. Each of us holds a burning flame inside of us. In some of us, it’s just a spark. In some of us, the spark is a roaring fire. When we come together, the flames of each person’s fire joins together into an enormous fire. That fire can change the unfairness into fairness, the fear into love.

An important part of that spark we carry inside of ourselves is anger. Many times, people with disabilities are taught to be obedient and be happy with what little we get, if we get anything at all. Ed Roberts, the Father of the Independent Living Movement, explained the importance of anger:

Most psychiatrists and service professionals who work with us [people with disabilities] tell us that anger is a bad thing – a stage to get over or something that we need to overcome. But anger is a powerful energy. We don’t need to suppress or get over our anger; we need to channel it into making change for the greater good. We need to make sure that we don’t turn our anger in on ourselves or our loved ones, but focus it on removing obstacles and making things happen…. I get angry all the time. I’m angry that people with disabilities are second-class citizens in this country. I get angry at how 97 percent of the billions of federal dollars spent either perpetuate our dependency on the system or increase it.

Are you angry about how people with disabilities are treated? Do you want to do something about it? There are many ways to get out there and make your mark! We’ll give you some tips on how to do it.

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