PERSPECTIVE
From pioneer to advocate for inclusion By Nancy Maguire
Nancy Maguire is a disability activist from the United Kingdom. She is a qualified social worker but, after travelling abroad, decided to campaign for the rights of people with disabilities, especially young women. She has worked with disabled people’s organizations in Asia and Southern Africa, and hopes to obtain a Master’s degree in policy and development.
I was born in London in 1986 and have a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as brittle bones. Many children with brittle bones grow up protected – overprotected, some might say – from any possibility of hurting themselves. My parents wanted me to be safe, but they also wanted me to have the opportunity to play, make friends and lead as normal a childhood as possible.
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In the 1980s, inclusive education was still a fairly new concept. Like most parents of a disabled child, mine were advised to send me to a special school. My mother is a teacher, and after visiting the recommended school she was convinced that it would provide a substandard education. My parents have always used my older sister Katy, who did not have a disability, to gauge what is acceptable for me: If they thought something wasn’t good enough for Katy, then it wasn’t good enough for me. I was the first child with a disability to attend my primary school, and in many ways I felt like a guinea pig for inclusion. For example, despite having a positive attitude towards including me in all aspects of school life, my teachers lacked experience in how to adapt physical education so that I could get involved in a meaningful way. Like most childhoods, mine wasn’t always easy. I spent a lot of time in hospital, and even within an ‘inclusive’ mainstream education system, there were times when I was excluded. For example, I wasn’t allowed to go to my nursery Christmas party because the teachers were worried I would break a bone.
THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2013: Children with Disabilities
Also, at high school they had a separate table in the canteen for children with disabilities and the teachers could not understand why I refused to sit at it. Despite setbacks and obstacles, however, I managed to flourish both educationally and socially. I was always encouraged to try new things. My extracurricular activities included swimming, ballet, wheelchair tennis, drama and singing. In many of these, I was also the only child with a disability. Interestingly, I often found these groups more inclusive than school in terms of how much I could participate and contribute. I felt wanted and people found creative ways for me to get involved. Nonetheless, there were many things I found difficult to do because of my limited mobility. I would sometimes feel upset because I couldn’t do things as well as the other children, and as I grew older and more selfconscious, I became reluctant to put myself in situations where my difficulties were on show. In my teenage years a lot of my friends went through phases of being a ‘goth’ or a ‘rude girl’, which involved dressing or behaving in ways designed to attract attention. Whilst they were doing everything they