Inclusion: Answer to 'disability'

Before I became an official in the Service and Food Workers, I used to work in the disability sector.

I recall a time when I was supporting a young autistic man. I would walk with him from his home to Hagley Park where we would stroll and then have a picnic lunch. As we walked he used to like it if I sang. So I used to croon some old Beatles songs and like. He used to clap his hands in delight as he bounced along beside me.

It would be very clear to anyone who passed us that my companion had an intellectual disability, but I was appalled when I saw that other people would sooner walk in the path of an oncoming bus than get anywhere near my autistic friend. It was if they thought they could 'catch autism' in the same way that one might catch a cold.

I was so incensed by this total indifference to his possible feelings that I decided to write the following poem, which I thought my friend might have said if he could express himself.

Inclusion

This is my world, I'm from this place,

I'm not beamed to earth from outer space.

Inclusion in society

Is a basic right for me.

Not 'out of sight and out of mind,'

Include me too and you will find.

I have a dream, I have a goal.

I have a heart, I have a soul.

You see these words are 'oh so true,

I'm a person, just like you.

 

A poem about disability by Chas Muir SFWU