By Emma Sleiman | Staff Writer
Despite being the biggest minority, people with intellectual, mental, and physical challenges are still covered by layers of stigma. This comes to the detriment of an untapped potential they hold towards themselves and towards the society that surrounds them. Layers impregnated by decades, if not centuries of unfashionable ableism that we ought to finally shatter.
Today, many are trying to redefine the notion we hold of ‘disability’, refurnishing our concept of true and sustainable inclusion. One of the changemakers being Mrs. Mona Maktabi, the co-founder of the Next Step Program at AUB. She was so delighted when narrating to me her journey and experience guiding her students with intellectual or/and mental challenges through the fulfillment of an academic rather than vocational journey, unleashing new doors for their employment.
Mrs. Mona made it very clear that referring to them properly is crucial to build a welcoming environment ‘We can’t say disabled anymore nor can we with handicapped, because it’s not the case, the same thing goes for special needs since we all have special needs, […], it’s a matter of challenges that these people face whether intellectually, mentally, cognitively or physically!’
If we go further down the line into different resources, we can depict how divergent are the attributes given to people with ‘challenges’: UN conventions, emanated from a common agreement made by the concerned stakeholders themselves, referring to them as ‘people with disabilities putting a clear emphasis on the individual rather than the disability. As debates on this topic continue to emerge, the image we held of disability as a chronic illness that should be classified as a medical case’ is fading away so that the individual, with all their complexity, shines.
In that respect, Mrs. Mona goes on reminiscing the first ladders of ‘The Next Step Program’ back to its conception by her fellow co-founder, the mother of a child with high functioning Down Syndrome who got rejected from traditional school in Grade 1 because of her ‘difference’. It is from then that the mission was ignited and that both women, through a very courageous path, were able to get The Next Step Program’s license to provide higher education to people with intellectual and mental challenges. ‘This program comes as a response to the question ‘What Next’ that parents oftentimes ask when their children with challenges graduate from school.’ You won’t find us selling candles and cookies, this program is not vocational, it is rather academic. Our students go through internships all over AUB: you can see them in libraries, cafeterias namely the OSB cafeteria, and others. As time goes by, they are being more and more accepted in different internships outside AUB as well!’ Not only that, but many program graduates have gotten to seize job positions just upon completion ‘Only yesterday, one of our students, who had the ambition of working as a secretary, was employed. Her mother is so proud of her and so are we!’
However, a lot still needs to be done in Mrs. Mona’s opinion: first is the architecture of the places as some of her students need support in transportation and find it difficult when ramps are closed or when the stair’s steps are wider than their height. Second, awareness needs to be addressed among students from across a multitude of majors: we are expected to show empathy rather than sympathy towards people with challenges.
The Next Step program is also complemented by the ABLE initiative, an initiative that holds the aim of providing more accessible higher education for everyone. ‘Accessibility for a Bolder Learning Experience’, is a hub for research and awareness around digital inclusion for students with challenges, helping them in their academic journey through the provision of the right IT resources.
A yearly summit is held, where researchers and people with challenges come to discuss their journey and discoveries to create a ripple effect not only in Lebanon, but also in the MENA region. The summit goes on to shift our focus as attendees from the apparent ‘disability’ someone holds, to the many abilities they have. As an initiative led by the Office of Information Technology (IT) in collaboration with the Student Affairs Accessible Education Office (AEO) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) ABLE is a student club. There, AUB students provide an interdisciplinary approach to work on the needs of students with challenges to provide them with the most successful learning journey through campaigns, actionable plans, recommendations, and most importantly conversations.
In that, we see the clear potential we all hold in shifting the notion of ‘disability’ from one of struggle to one of empowerment through conversational efforts, active participation in already existing initiatives, and reflection. We are all asked to reflect on how we can include people with challenges in our daily lives, in our classes, and later in our offices. It is, therefore, necessary to find the intersection between each of our fields of study and inclusion so that we help unleash untapped talents who hold so much potential and create, as the ABLE initiative so justly states it, ‘A Bolder Learning Experience for All’.