Access Living Youth Center

Organizing for Disability Rights!

Organizing is one of the most important ways we fight for disability rights. Organizing for disability rights happens every day, around the world, all the time.

Organizing means getting people together to take action and win something that will change things for the better. An organizer is a person who is willing to help people get together and support them to WIN their goals.

Why is it important to take action together? Well, first of all, it always feels good to win, and winning is even better when you share it with other people. Everyone feels good when they know that they have helped make something good happen. In disability rights, it's very important for as many of us to work together as possible, because change that affects some of us will actually affect all of us.

It's also important that people with disabilities organize themselves. There is an old African saying: "Nothing About Us Without Us." We use that to say that people with disabilities should make decisions that affect people with disabilities. So it is very important that we have leaders and organizers with disabilities.

Organizing is about people power. One person can make a difference, but a lot of people feel better when they work to make a difference WITH other people. If your friends are doing something fun or interesting, you're more likely to do it too. And, when you are working for disability rights, many times it is very important to show how MANY people care about your cause. Organizing is also about making sure the right people see your people power.

You may already know some of the ways people organize. Have you ever seen a protest, a rally or a vigil? Have you ever seen a march, or gone to a public meeting? Have you ever gone to a hearing or spoken before a board? Have you ever written a letter for a mail or fax campaign? These are some of the things people do when they organize. They do these things to move their issue from complaining about it in the living room, to making it public.

When you organize, you pick an issue, or something that you want to win. Get a group of people together and have them talk about what they see as problems. For example, some people may think not having jobs is a big problem. Other people might think not going to college is a big problem too. These are very general PROBLEMS. What you have to do is find out what the ISSUES are: specific things that you can do something about.

Let's take the problem of not going to college. If you talk with your group, perhaps the issue will turn out to be something like this: the public bus that stops at the local community college often has a broken wheelchair lift, so people who need the lift can't really use the bus. As a result, no one can go to school on their own. This is something very specific that you can do something about.

The next step is to figure out who can do something about the bus. The bus driver? Probably not? The college? Maybe, but it's a city bus. The city bus company? Probably. Why not go for the director of the bus company? So perhaps your group will decide that what needs to be done is to write a letter to the bus company director and ask that the bus lifts stay in working order. You could ask for a response in two weeks.

If you get a response, great! If you don't hear anything...and time goes by...what are you going to do? Well, in organizing we say that it's time to ESCALATE. Escalating means that it's time to try something different to win your goal, something that hasn't been tried that will make your bus company director listen. Maybe your group will decide that it's time to go to his office! If he won't respond to a letter, go see him in person.

Even if only three or four people go to the office, GO anyway. One of organizing's unwritten rules is that you have to take a risk. Even if you have never tried something before, give it your best shot. You'll never know what you'll get! So have your group go on down to the director's office. If you get a meeting with him, go ahead and explain your issue. If he puts down, IN WRITING, that the bus company will fix the lifts, that's wonderful! Just make sure they do it. If the director won't commit to anything, what do you need to do? ESCALATE! Keep pushing till you get what you need.

To learn more about organizing at Access Living, contact Amber at asmock@accessliving.org.

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