Area high school students gathered Friday for Disability Mentoring Day at the Homer Cole Community Center.
The national program is coordinated by the American Association of People with Disabilities. Co-chairs for the local event were Barry Garbrick, disability program navigator with Kansas Works, and Lou Ann Colyer, independent living coordinator for SKIL (Southeast Kansas Independent Living).
The event is designed to promote career development for students and other job seekers with disabilities.
“We did this two years ago and had about 40 students,” Colyer said. “Now we’ve got students from Pittsburg, Frontenac, Arma, Girard, Galena, Cherokee and Altamont.”
The program started with Mark Turnbell, economic director for the City of Pittsburg.
“It used to be that when an industry was thinking about coming to a city, the big question they would ask was where they would be located,” he said. “They still want to know that, but now workforce is a big question. We import 800 or 900 people every day to work at jobs in Pittsburg, so we need to develop our workforce.”
Turnbull also brought a proclamation from Pittsburg Mayor Pamela Henderson, declaring Nov. 7 as Disability Mentoring Day in Pittsburg.
Colyer said she was very pleased with this honor.
“I’ve heard that, on a national level, not every city commission will honor Disability Mentoring Day in this way,” she said.
Keynote speakers were Julia Fonseca, executive director, and Carrie Greenwood, outreach coordinator, both of the Kansas Youth Empowerment Academy, Topeka. They first discussed the Disability Heritage Project.
“Heritage is a combination of history and culture, and the disability community does have a history and culture,” said Greenwood, who’s a former Miss Wheelchair Kansas.
Parts of that history are very dark.
“Those with disabilities were included in the Holocaust,” Fonseca said. “Hitler killed 250,000 people with disabilities because they did not fit into his idea of perfection. I went to the Holocaust Museum a couple of week ago, and there is an area there devoted to this.”
In the United States and other countries, those with disabilities were not victims of state-sponsored murder, but suffered other horrors.
“How many of you have heard of institutions?” Fonseca said. “Those are like zoos, where they put people who were different. Sometimes they were put in cages. They were also sterilized, because society didn’t want people with disabilities having more people with disabilities.”
There are also heroes in the disability community, including Ed Roberts, who fought to attend the University of California-Berkeley, and formed a group, the “Rolling Quads,” to advocate for those with disabilities. Roberts earned his degree, but was told by a vocational rehabilitation counselor that he would never be able to find a job.
“The cool thing is, Ed became director of vocational rehabilitation, so he was the boss of the person who told him he’d never find a job,” Fonseca said.
She and Greenwood also told of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires that those with disabilities receive a free, appropriate education, and the Americans With Disabilities Act, which was signed in 1990.
Greg Jones of SKIl discussed acts of disobedience performed by ADAPT to draw attention to issues such as lack of accessibility of public places.
During a brief break, Frontenac High School drama and theater students presented skits dealing with job interviewing skills.
Following break, Fonseca and Greenwood discussed the Youth Leadership Forum, a one-week summer program high school students with disabilities at Washburn University. Both of them attended the program, and found it a life-changing experience which led to their careers in working with youth with disabilities.
Several area employers were present for small-group sessions to meet with students and exchange information on job needs and expectations.
Students said the day was a helpful experience for them.
“My main field of interest is automotive technology and reconstruction,” he said. “I learned I can go anywhere to ask for a job, and they can’t turn me down without a good reason.”
“It’s a good event they’ve come up with,” said Derek Shepherd, Oswego High School senior who takes a life and career skills class at Columbus. “It helps students learn what it’s like out here in the world.”
He hopes to go to college and study heavy machine operation, or possibly welding.
Mercedes Eckles, Southeast High School, plans to start college and major in nursing.
“I think this day was a really good idea, and it gives us all a chance to see that just because we have a disability it shouldn’t hold us back in life,” she said. “It makes me feel better that I’m not the only one about to take the next big step.”
PITTSBURG —
