Do more than belong: participate.
Do more than care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.
~William Arthur Ward~
Action. It makes a difference. It changes lives.
It’s been a while since I’ve been involved in the experience of of watching someone transform from being unaware to being ready to leap to action. It’s a great experience. I’ve been a “disability advocate” for so long, surrounded by people with similar beliefs, that I forgot what this is like.
I just returned from being on the road for ten days. It began at the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention, surrounded by friends who recharge my passion each year. I spent the day with health care professionals from all around the country, discussing ways to network and improve the quality of health care for people with Down syndrome of all ages and stages. They feel like family.They are family.
From there I headed to the Special Olympics US National Games where I work with the Healthy Athletes Initiative in the Health Promotion Venue. We trained about 14 health care professionals to serve as volunteer Clinical Directors in their local programs for Health Promotion. They were great. Full of life, laughter, fun, and passion. Though they do not work in this field every day, working with people with IDD is not new to them.
One of my roles this past week was to assist with the creation of a training video for the Health Promotion Program. We chose to focus our attention on effective communication in a health screening for people with intellectual disabilities. It’s not an easy topic to script or capture visually. Special Olympics contracted this video work from Two Parrot Production. The crew was talented and very focused on the project.
And then it happened. The transformation. The move from observer to participant.
The magic.
His name is Nick. He’s magic.
I can’t embed the video directly. Watch it here.
I believe he changed a couple of lives during the taping moving them to….action. I can’t wait to see the difference they make.
I’m committed to the process.