Global-Report-Living-Colour-dr2-2

Inclusive Communities = Stronger Communities
GLOBAL REPORT ON ARTICLE 19: THE RIGHT TO LIVE AND BE INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY
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By shifting our strategies to focus more attention on
communities and systems and less on the person’s
disability, we are helping to build communities that are
more inclusive of all groups and therefore stronger. When
teachers learn how to teach students with a range of
learning styles, with different types of intelligence, how to
adapt curriculum, they become better teachers of all
students. Likewise, an education system that makes
supports available to the teacher, that draws on all
personnel to help problem solve, that is committed to
making every student succeed rather than banishing the
ones having trouble is a better system overall.
The presence of a worker with a disability in
the workplace can help build morale and it
means fewer people dependent on income
support. Inclusion and inclusive strategies
that develop relationships and strengthen
the informal connections between people
contribute to social capital for both families
and individuals. The inclusion of people with
intellectual disabilities in the community
contributes to social cohesion; the
acceptance of difference in the community.
While inclusion in the community is
important to individuals and families, it is also essential to
building stronger social and economically cohesive
societies. Families and family organizations have often
been the drivers of change in communities, as volunteers
as advocates and as support systems but they need help
to play those roles. We need to invest in families and in
family organizations to achieve inclusion in the
community for people with intellectual disabilities and
stronger communities for all.