Feb 25, 2006

WalkIcon: Leslie DeDora - Ability Aware


To learn how walk culture relates to people with limited vision, mobility or other challenges, we asked Leslie DeDora to take us to school on the subject. As Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit, A Touch of Understanding, she wears many hats but made time to raise our awareness about disabilities, current issues and links to walk culture.

Here is the first excerpt from Q&A with Leslie.

Intro: A Touch of Understanding is a non-profit organization that fosters respect and empathy for all individuals. To influence the attitudes of youth, the program is geared toward elementary and high school students. With mainstreaming and full inclusion becoming more prevalent in schools, all students--able bodied and disabled--benefit from recognizing their common humanity, desires and feelings through the organization's interactive workshops. The organization has incredibly dedicated volunteers who interact with students and profoundly change the perceptions and misconceptions commonly held toward those who seem different.

Q: Why did you decide to create A Touch of Understanding?

A: I usually compare that process to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together. The pieces are many different experiences that touched me deeply and changed my life.

First, as a child, I had an aunt with developmental disabilities. I remember that I used to tease her and make her cry. It was so confusing to me because my aunt looked like an adult but she acted like a child because of her disability.

When I was in elementary school, there were students who had disabilities, too. No one ever explained anything about them to the rest of us and those kids were tormented. During recess, children with disabilities had to sit in the principal’s office. I sometimes sat with those kids and we became friends. I took on a protective role and was a go-between with the rest of my class. The other kids never really got to know them.

When I became a mom, I took my young son to a museum that had a display about disabilities. Back then (several decades ago) the display consisted of an old, wooden wheel chair, wooden crutches and a coffin. It was a pitiful display but my 3-year old talked about it for months because he was able to sit in the wheelchair and use the crutches.

That impressed me...and that’s probably when I began to come up with ideas that are part of A Touch of Understanding today.

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WalkIcons is the Walktopia interview series that explores the walk universe--the people, places and activities of a new walk culture. Our goal is to connect dispersed elements of this dynamic, global walking community through talking and sharing ideas.

Visual Credit: http://www.touchofunderstanding.org

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