Who are we?  We are the silent voices that live in your cities, towns and villages across the nation.  We are children, teenagers, or adults, with countless dreams, hopes, wants and needs. Participators in a lifestyle with quality and meaning, just like you, this is the longing of our existence. Are we just like each normal person? I have to ask you! We aren't asking for more but we must not ask for less!  We as human beings need community. To be given a horizon of hopes and opportunities to be living and dwelling members of the joint interaction of any culture.

Whether we have outer or inner disabilities, and we all do have some form of disability! Society’s jailers, we have to become, that puts the key into the lock, closed doors can become open wide new avenues for individuals to start to explore and be a vital part of their unfolding environment. The key unlocking many doors is communication, acceptance and coming along side and upholding one and another. Through many locked doors we have come. Through many locked doors we need to go. The world is still a foreign land to many of our issues as non-speaking and handicapped individuals. As we go into our future we must realize it is our placement and it is our duty to set up the blueprint for a better tomorrow. Although many people will help, this task of mapping out a more inclusive way of dealing with our community lays largely on our shoulders and no one else's.

Let's face it; very few people meet the norms of any society. There are numerous people globally who can’t meet many of their own cultural norms or standards. So they develop and foster an innermost strength and often go across the line and live a life above the trapping of earth. Really, it is a part of just being. We are the great human carvers and craftsman. We carve one way one day and carve the other way the next day, All People have physical disabilities and complex needs.  Health problems, employment cut backs, abuse in families and countless factors alter peoples’ lives. People with "handicaps" are members of a subculture that don't meet the standards. We shouldn't look for an easy way of life in a society filled with all ranges of disability. As a society, we need to ask ourselves,”Are we setting the standards too low for the population with a disability?"

How do non-speaking individuals fit in? When society sets low goals, we are not expected to go to college or to university, get jobs, get married, have families or be owners of land or houses, and the list goes on. It is easy to have a feeling of very low self-worth if one is a member of the non-speaking subculture. Not many of us are allowed to question and be given the opportunity to wonder. Without this option being given to this cultural group, it will always be a drain rather than a contributor. Is this what we need or want? For any person to have self-worth, there is a need to have a purpose.  Without this our lives become meaningless and full of self-pity. One of the greatest things that society can give anyone is to be needed and have a feeling of usefulness in one's world. This cultural barricade badly needs to be addressed as we move ahead.

When I look at Human Rights as it deals with issues of persons with disabilities, especially the population of non-speaking individuals in Canada, I reflect back on the environment which I was very blessed to have. Sit back and think if when you got up tomorrow, your voice and most of your physical capabilities were gone, not for a couple of days, but forever. Who would you be? What would you do? You would basically be the same person after you accepted everything on the inside. If possible, you would keep some of your individual status in your work and community because you had some degree of relating to your peer group. Most of us in this room, if not all, have some level of status that helps us get along in the world. We are probably literate; and many at this conference have university degrees or a higher level of education.  I am also quite sure we all lead very full and productive lifestyles.

The story is quite different for most persons who are non-speaking and have all kinds of daily physical and communication limitations. Many of us sit in wheelchairs.  We are the non-speaking people across this nation. You don't hear much from us because our voices are silent.  We sit for a dawning of a new horizon, a new vision to be included, treated with dignity and given opportunities to reach our own levels of independence. No, we aren't asking for the “can't-be-done” things in society, but for the things that can be done! I look for a new dawning here in Canada! the dawning of a fully included community for all non-speaking individuals.

Provide ample opportunities and expectations for communication.  Teach assertiveness and perseverance.  Teach children to speak up for themselves, to become their own advocates.  Encourage them to “Just Do It” – on their own.  In the words of Albert Schweitzer, “One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity”.

Don’t allow them to become passive.  Never!  No way!  Not an option!!

As our words so often don’t get an avenue to speak.

As our thoughts often don’t get out.

May our heart’s meditation be on you, day and night,

In season and out season.

Man can only look upon the outer shell but you know my inmost thoughts.

My skin is here today and gone tomorrow. My disability shell is just a shell

That will pass away but my soul will soar from this limited body of mine someday.

I will look for a new horizon where my body will dance. Forever in your house and my voice will be clear like a bell.

But until then, may I be content in this body.

May my being be happy each day that flows out of your hands.

When people don’t treat me with dignity and honor, empower me to treat them the opposite.

Teach me also to look beyond people’s outer shell and really accept them for who they are. As you accept me, may I accept others.

Give me the knowledge of knowing what I can change and what I can’t;

Teach me the deep knowledge of life. It is more than dwelling in so called a “normal” body. It is dwelling and seeing the rainbows in each day of existence. They are there.

My sadness will not overtake who I really am.

May my own spirit be full of overflowing joy, so I can be a powerful tool that sways people to realize how rich life can be.

May I realize that the wounds and deep cuts of living in my disabled body will pass away. Develop an unmovable spirit in me that looks forward to each sunrise and sunset. Develop an unspoken spirit within me that people without outer disabilities can seek from me and discover the person who I really am.

My spirit longs to fly away from this disabled body. My tongue is ready to talk. But I will journey onward and teach people that disabilities is just a time earthly matter.

Please take a few minutes now and come with me as we go through walls. Brick walls become gateways to the overcomers and triumphers.