Overdue Pictures from Judith Snow’s Visit

April 22nd, 2008 by chloe | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Back in January, Judith Snow and her four friends, Gloria, Paula, Gean, and Franziska came to stay in Savannah for two weeks. It was meant to be a nice break from the Toronto winter and a chance for her to make headway on her book. BUT, she’s Judith Snow and everyone wants to talk with her, but mostly hear her talk. She gave several amazing lectures, took over the Sentient Bean coffee shop as her art studio, and brought people together. If you missed her while she was in Savannah, check out the Toronto Inclusion Conference in July. She’s always there. Also, you can find books about her/by her on www.Inclusion.com.

If you don’t know anything about her, I recommend changing that!

I also hope you’ll join in with me in shouting ENCORE! We want her to come back soon!

-Chloe Stuber

Earth Day, Biking, and Herman

April 20th, 2008 by Sean | Posted in Advocate View, herman | No Comments »

I have a new job with the City of Savannah, Director of Mobility and Parking. Which means that I have to get used to being both the most loved (projects like the River Street Streetcar) and the most hated (meter maids fall under me) person in Savannah all at one time. Incidentally, we call our meter maids parking enforcement officers because quite a few of them are male.

At least I get to have some focus on my second love, biking. Earth Day featured a lot of activities around biking, including getting the mayor and chairman of the County Commission on a bike.

Herman and I have talked about biking. He doesn’t think that he can learn how to use a bike. I am of the philosophy that anyone can learn to use a bike with the proper training and time. I think we forget just how important the bicycle can be to many in our community who find themselves locked out of society. For populations that can’t offered a car the bicycle is vital. Herman is actually very good with the public transit system in Savannah, a trait that he shares with many proteges in Citizen Advocacy. Herman’s mother is also not terribly thrilled with the idea of him on a bike. She’s helped to protect him for this long and isn’t going to let some driver not looking the right way hurt Herman now. this may be the sort of thing that we look at later down the line. It’s not that he can’t bike, its just that he’s been told about so many things that he can’t do to the point that he sometimes doesn’t believe he can do anything.

St. Patrick’s Day and Stuff

March 30th, 2008 by Sean | Posted in Advocate View | No Comments »

So clearly my rule about trying to blog 3 times per week has gone to that bad place we can’t say.  At least I can say I’m very happy with the entries that I have made so I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

I work in the City Manager’s Office in Savannah and among the things that I handle is helping to organize the St. Patrick’s Day celebration.  St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in Savannah; A VERY big deal.  Every year thousands of people come for the parade (nearly four hours long) and then for the after parade celebration.  It’s basically an excuse to have a spring break party, particularly true since many of the participants are literally on spring break from nearby colleges/universities.

I mention all of this to say that when we talk about inclusion we should ask the question is everyone included in celebrations like this.  Herman has never been to the St. Patrick’s Day parade and given his aversion to alcohol (probably a good things) does not want to participate in the after parade celebration.  So what is their left to do in the City’s biggest festival; not much.

I have to wonder what a St. Patrick’s Day celebration that truly tried to include everyone would look like? As it stands now if you’re not a someone who likes to drink or can not stand around for four hours this is not an event you really feel invited to.  I don’t think it was purposfully set up like this, it just sort of happened over a number of years.

Herman and Me

March 9th, 2008 by Sean | Posted in Advocate View | No Comments »

I first met Herman about four years ago help the help of Tom Kohler, the local director of Citizen Advocacy.  I won’t go into the details of Herman’s story (he’ll give that later), but it’s safe to say that the majority of people who have tried to “help” Herman have largely made him worse.  Whether it was doctor’s prescribing various drugs, counselors deeming him too unstable to be in regular public school, or teachers using corporal punishment in his alternative school, they all probably thought they were doing right by him.  The result of this is a young man who often wonders why people didn’t like him that much him he was a child.  All he wants to do now is get a job and help out his mother.

His mother has dedicated herself to protecting him from a society that she is largely threatened by.  This is good in the sense that Herman has never been influenced into trouble.  However, it also means that he misses out on regular interactions that we all take for granted.  I’ve slowly tried to introduce him to some of those interactions as he’s become more curious about them.  At the same time Herman has showed me how silly some of those interactions are.  “Why do people have to go to bars to meet each other?”  I don’t really have a good answer to this question, but if you’re between the ages of 21 and 35 (Herman is 23 now) that’s the dominate place that young adults interact.

So that’s the question.  Where are other places that young people can interact who don’t want to drink?

Library, church, coffee shop, Best Buy, etc…

What’s my value?

March 2nd, 2008 by Sean | Posted in Advocate View | 1 Comment »

I’ve been involved in Citizen Advocacy for nearly five years now. It started as it did with all people who become advocates in Savannah, Georgia. Tom Kohler gave me call and asked if I would o out to lunch with him. That lunch eventually led me to Herman. You’ll hear more about (and from) Herman in later entries. Before that I was asked to visualize the world around me as separated in to two groups.

Those that are valued by society

Those that are not valued by society

Our society (beyond just country, think more established human hierarchies of society) places values on almost everything. Value can be measured in terms of money, time, effort, and a host of other units. We also (whether we realize it or not) place a value on the people around us. If you’ve every been to a party you see this play out in an obvious fashion. People gravitate toward other people because they may be rich, or powerful, or good looking, or just a great conversationalist. For that particular moment in time that person is more valued than others. Now imagine that played out over thousands of little and big decisions that we make every day. Now imagine that applied to millions of people and you have the construct of social role valuation.

Here’s one good example.

Why is it that certain people are separated from the rest of our society. Criminals are deemed too dangerous, people with contagious diseases may be a risk to spread their disease and therefore must be separated. However, what about a person with cerebral palsy or a mentally retarded child, or am elderly person whose quadriplegic. We have set up systems and processes that are in many cases designed to separate those people from the rest of us. We say things like “They need to be some place where they can receive good care”, but do we really account for the care they receive in nursing homes, groups homes, and institutions. At a deeper level why do we feel the need to have this care administered in places where we don’t have to interact with these people?

Have we made a decision as a society that these people are less valuable than others and can therefore be removed from our presence because we believe they don’t contribute to the betterment of society?

I’ve always thought these things, but it wasn’t until I met Tom that I could really grab it, internalize, and face it. It was through reading and discussions with Tom that I came to Citizen Advocacy and eventually Herman.

I Hope I Know What I’m Doing

February 24th, 2008 by Sean | Posted in Advocate View | 1 Comment »

My name is Sean Brandon, I live in Savannah, Georgia and I’ll be blogging about my experience with Citizen Advocacy.

Well, I’m glad to get that out of the way. Too often I find blogs where nothing is said about the person writing or why they’re doing a blog in the first place. I’m saying right up front that I’m here to give you a first person perspective about being an advocate. I’m also hoping to have a few entries written by other advocates. All of this is attempt to answer the questions “What is Citizen Advocacy and why is it important.”

Hopefully through some of my ongoing experiences and others why can answer both of those questions. For now, I’m just glad to get this blog off the ground. I’ve got a few rules that I’ve set for myself to help this process.

1. I’m going to try and blog at least 3 times per week and definietley at least once on the weekends.

2. I’m not going to cite any supposed fact or figure without a cite and will state an opinion very clearly as an opinion

3. I’ll do my best to make every entry relevant to those two questions I stated up front

- What is Citizen Advocacy

- Why is it important

Happy Reading