Are you guilty of seeing the learning difficulty rather than the person behind it?
We were, until we took part in a project with a group of young adults with learning difficulties. Now we want to challenge the media to do more to get the voices of people with learning difficulties ‘out there’ and get their needs met.
Before this project we had very little knowledge of how learning difficulties affected people’s lives. What we learnt is that every person has talents and a story worth hearing, but we also learnt that all too often it falls on deaf ears.
Some people may not be able to tell their story in an extremely articulate way but by spending time communicating with them we got a very real account of just how much these people do matter as much as you or I. We used a mixture of media skills sessions and creative groupwork and talking to their carers, parents and teachers.
We used practical recording, photography and interviewing skills, which they picked up quickly, proving that the media could not only be empowering them but employing them.
Helen Hasson, winner of a gold Special Olympics medal, interviewed the organisation’s chairperson Richard Edgar during the project. She said: "I had never used a microphone or recording equipment before and I had never interviewed anyone before. I am really proud of myself."
Another participant, Dympna, told us: "I worry about people in other countries all over the world and I do a lot of charity work to help them. I have done the Foyle Hospice charity walk every year for 25 years."
Had we not talked to Dympna we would still be seeing her disability rather than acknowledging her ability to help others.
The media need to look at more ways of “people promoting” - making people realise that when they make judgements they're looking at the learning difficulty and not the person behind it.
Maria Fox, Regional Manager of Gingerbread NI, an organisation focussed on lone parents, told us: "It’s crucial that we hear the stories of young people and vulnerable people in society whether it’s through the print media or news media or otherwise."
"More media organisations should be looking at how they can contribute just as Headliners is doing."
It's a view other professionals we spoke to agreed with. So did Mary O’Neill, a Headliners volunteer and carer of 19-year-old Shauna who has cerebral palsy. She stressed: "It can be extremely frustrating trying to get the needs of young people with learning difficulties heard. Shauna may not be able to speak for herself but she is an individual in her own right with her own rights.
"I can't stress how much I wish the media and organisations like Headliners would do more to voice these needs and get something done about them."
It seems that in Derry and in a lot of places that people attach a stigma to people with any sort of disability. They aren't listened to, and if they are nothing more than a lipservice is paid to them by politicians.
When we spoke to Dr Michael Dobbins, Principal of Foyleview School in Derry, he said that the media should be working towards eradicating it in the future, having been guilty of attaching this stigma in the past.
"I think the media is important in telling the real story of our children’s lives." he told us. "In the past the media has concentrated on notions of handicapped, notions of disability whereas we want to see is to focus on the uniqueness of our individual children."
I Matter was a partnership project with Praxis, and Foyle Down Syndrome Trust and Citizens On-Line.
The participants were; Dympna Markey, Helen Hasson, Brian Sutherland, Lisa Cregan, Mark Faulkner, Margaret Giles and James Norris.
About this article
This article was written by the Headliners members who took part in the project. They were Gavin Moran, Marie Therese Doherty, Sharmin Rahman, Emmet Barr, Niall Bradley, David Hunter and Aoife White.
