Twenty-two people representing businesses, schools and agencies in Richland County got to experience first-hand what it means to have a disability during Richland Newhope’s 13th annual Community Awareness Day on Thursday.
Members of the Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation’s current Leadership Unlimited class ventured out into the community armed with earplugs, gloves, altered vision glasses and other equipment to simulate disabilities.
Jane Imbody, Director of Community Relations at Richland Newhope, said the purpose of Community Awareness Day is to increase knowledge and understanding of how a disability can impact someone’s life.
“The main purpose of the day is to have them experience a little bit of what it’s like, and the challenges that people with disabilities face every day,” said Imbody. “We really want them to focus more on people’s abilities and things they can do. We want them to see individuals we support doing jobs, doing artwork, and being involved in the community in some way.”
The simulated disability activity lasted about two hours and took place in several locations, including Richland Newhope Industries, Raintree, the Early Childhood Center, City Garden Café, and Element of Art Studio/Gallery. The Community Awareness Day ended with a luncheon where the participants described their experience.
Sarah Hunter from the Area Agency on Aging came away with a greater awareness of what people with disabilities go through after attempting to perform a task at Richland Newhope Industries while wearing bulky work gloves to simulate having a neurological disorder.
“We’ve been trying to wrap tubes and twist ties around things and it’s very, very difficult,” said Hunter. “They had me do it without the gloves on and even then it’s still difficult. I don’t normally work with my hands, I’m a social worker, so it’s not something I’m really good at. So thinking about doing that repetitively every day, I couldn’t imagine doing it with a disability.”
Hunter said that while performing the task was quite difficult while working alongside people with real disabilities, she also recognized what they could accomplish.
“I came away recognizing their ability and what they can do, and how much that’s appreciated in this county,” said Hunter. “I mean to be able to work and get paid for that is fantastic.”
According to Imbody, Richland Newhope currently supports more than 1,700 people with disabilities in Richland County through early intervention, preschool, adult, residential, therapy, transportation and other family support programs. She said she hopes the members of Leadership Unlimited can bring what they learned on Thursday back to the organizations they represent and use their experiences to help others with disabilities.
“I think people who go in the community today will have a better understanding of how difficult it can be just to enter a doorway at a restaurant that doesn’t have an automatic door opener, or the challenges or maneuvering a wheelchair,” said Imbody. “What could happen then is they could go back and say we need to make changes; we need to do something here to make it easier for our customers with disabilities to access our facility.”
Karen Hagans, Executive Director of the Career Services Center at Ashland University, said she thinks her experience will enhance what she can do for her students even more. Hagans wore altered vision glasses and an adapted wrist/arm band on Thursday to simulate Cerebral Palsy and a mild visual impairment. Her simulated disabilities made it difficult to complete her art project at Element Of Art.
“The beads are so tiny, I can see the beads on the gray (surface), but I can’t see them at all on a colorful surface, I had to move my hands to figure out where they were,” she said. “You hear that sometimes when people don’t have use of one of their senses that their other ones are improved, so I was relying a lot on the touch of my fingertips to even know what I was touching.”
Hagans also noted putting on her seatbelt as she got into the car was complicated, a difficulty that hit close to home.
“My dad is 90 and he just had a stroke two weeks ago, so helping him get his seatbelt on was something that I did for him,” said Hagans. “Now I can think, how frustrating, especially when you had that ability and then it was taken away from you. Not that if you were born a certain way it isn’t challenging, but I think it’s an appreciation for both of those things.”
Imbody noted there are some agencies that disapprove of simulating disabilities because they believe it tends to invoke sympathy, which she said is certainly not the goal of Richland Newhope.
“The goal is not to invoke sympathy for people with disabilities,” said Imbody. “We don’t want them to feel sorry for people with disabilities, we want them to instead say ‘hey, this person is pretty neat, I made a new friend, and this person can do a lot.’ Hopefully they’ll come away with a new perspective of people with disabilities.”
“I think people who go in the community today will have a better understanding of how difficult it can be just to enter a doorway at a restaurant that doesn’t have an automatic door opener, or the challenges or maneuvering a wheelchair,” said Jane Imbody.
