Young person’s voice
Amplifying the Voices of Disabled Young People.
Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi describes her involvement in ALLFIE’s projects to empower Young people. I first became involved with ALLFIE in 2010, when I was 19 and part of the VIPER project. VIPER is short for Voice, Inclusion, Participation, Empowerment and Research. It was a 3-year project that taught Young Disabled people research methods, in order to find out whether they were getting the chance to participate in decision-making for the services that they receive. It was here that I was introduced to the Social Model of Disability and the idea of Disability Rights. This was an eye-opening experience for me. It changed the way I view disability and the way I view myself as a Disabled person. Since 2014, I’ve worked as a volunteer for ALLFIE.
During this time, I’ve helped to design and deliver ALLFIE’s Knowledge is Power Toolkit, which was created so that Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs) can help to empower Young people about Disability Rights, identity and decision-making. More recently, I’ve been involved in three further projects that ALLFIE has run for Disabled Young people. In July 2019, ALLFIE began the Being Seen Being Heard project, which focuses on how Disabled Young people and older Disability Activists can learn from each other and how to bridge the generational gap.
Image: Making it Happen workshop visual minutes, by Steve Hodgkinson
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