Cecile Buhl, Pride - Powered by pechakucha, December 3rd, idpd

So as I was thinking about our theme today, I thought: What is pride? And sometimes the theme is thought of as negative, so I think most of us know the phrase "pride goes before the fall." But as I was further considering this, I thought there are positive ideas in pride as well. So accomplishments, family, pride in our country, in friends, in our children, and in environment, whether that be natural environment or societal environment. As I continued to think about this sense of pride, I thought of three words that I attach to pride, to tell my own story. And I thought "in, despite, and because" of things are three words that would further tell my story. So first of all, and especially today, I have pride in making it here! Where I want to be... Without compromising my beliefs and values, on my own terms, for the most part, even though that wasn't always popular. I also have pride in my travels, which are very important to me. My pastimes and my education, and having the perseverance to do these things that I wanted to do at the time that they were presented to me. I think this is self-explanatory. But the toilet is also symbolic for me, for all the physical obstacles that are placed before me. Not by my own hand and not that I have any say in. And have to overcome. So for me, prejudice and discrimination is not synonymous. For me, prejudice is a little more physical retaliation. And as the picture shows, for me, the little yellow duck here, discrimination tends to be being left out. There's also those non-physical barriers; so our external barriers from other people such as people's false ideas, their stereotypes and negative attitudes and internal barriers, my own, such as fears, doubts and of course self esteem. But because of the people that I have met, with open minds that are willing to accept me, and think of others and put themselves in my situation, because of those people, and also the people who I don't personally know that are in the limelight, whether that be in sports, knowledge, music, or other areas, these are all outstanding people that drive me to succeed and give me things to aspire to. I did a lot of thinking about this pride thing. And in continuing to reflect, and thinking of our international day of persons with disability, I realized that each individual and their story ripples outward towards the level of community, and globally. I think there's a slide missing. Sorry. Can we back that up? No. Okay, we'll miss that one. There's a missing slide. In travelling, opening minds and connecting with people, hearing their story and telling my own, there comes to be an understanding. And we're not as different as we may seem. In turn, that creates community, and by having dialogue and becoming involved, we can create new communities, bring communities together that already exist, of any adventures, experiences, and new connections, and expand with our world. No one can know what a person's story is until they tell it, and by telling it, they dispel those assumptions. And I am always reminded of this when I work with the Calgary public library and living libraries, volunteers. By getting to know people, listening and working as a team, it forms bonds and that connects us to a community, and it to us. It gives us some sort of identification of self within a group. So as our community connections expand, it offers us a chance to look for a better chance of quality of life beyond survival, not leaving us solitary. So these are sort of a couple of my ideas of quality of life. So what is your definition? Community, connections and knowledge are the most important things to incite change in society. It gives us autonomy, and this I have learned from the teachers in Brazil. So as we have autonomy, it leads to a group that has a strong voice, one voice. We can support each other. And regardless of our specific disability, and the only way to bring on change is that we all work together on a particular goal. Through our stories, our changes, through learning through experiences, we have all come from the past to the present. To International Day of Persons with Disability. Celebrating our pride together. Thank you. [ Applause ] Cecile Buhl: That's my missing slide! At the end.