Contest hopes to enlighten kids

Disability Awareness Month may have ended in March, but Options for Better Living Inc. is extending awareness through the month of April. OBL is sponsoring an essay contest about attitudes toward people with disabilities for Monroe County third- through eighth-graders.\n"We want to increase awareness among children," said Susan Rinne, executive director at OBL. "Our ultimate goal is to open children's eyes to unintentional, yet painful, things they have said or done to someone with a disability."\nOBL is a non-profit organization that partners with individuals with disabilities and their communities to bring about self-directed and fulfilled lives. OBL offers a variety of services including group living, in-home supports and behavior management. \nThis is the first year for the essay contest, and Rinne hopes the impact will be substantial. \n"Though we have not had a lot of feedback from individual teachers, the Monroe County School System was extremely supportive," said Rinne.\nEssays will be grouped into several categories based on grade level, and awards will be given to first, second and third place winners in each category. The essays will be judged by Trevor Brown, dean of the IU School of Journalism, and Bob Magee, a retired IU administrator and OBL board member. For the past four years, Brown has been a judge for a state contest sponsored by the governor for editors and news reporters concerning people with disabilities. \n"Disabilities do not define a person," said Brown. "We will be looking for essays that are sensitive to the matter but do not pity a person with a disability."\nSuggested topics for the essay that were given to students included interviewing a person with a disability, reading a book about a person with a disability or writing about observations of attitudes toward the disabled. \nOBL provided Monroe County schools with packets of activities in which students can participate in order to increase disability awareness. The decision to participate in the essay contest will be left up to the teachers in the classroom.\n"Though the contest is intended to help raise awareness among children," said Brown, "I think it will be just as beneficial to the teachers." \nThe theme for this year's Disability Awareness Month is "Freedom from Exclusion" with "Inclusion Now" as the tag line. Four different issues were used to bring awareness to Bloomington and neighboring communities. The first and second issues brought to the community were the inaccessibility of the democratic system for people with disabilities and the fact that people with disabilities are sometimes denied basic voting rights.\n"Some voting facilities are physically inaccessible," said Rinne. "A lot of people do not know that."\nThe third issue dealt with disabilities being more than what people may see.\n"Disabilities go far beyond the eye," said Veronica Amarant, development director at OBL. "It is important to understand that disabilities are not just physical."\nThe emphasis of the essay contest came from the fourth issue, which encouraged people to foster a positive attitude for people with disabilities and promoted the natural curiosity of disabilities. \n"It does not take long for stereotypes to be imbedded in our minds," said Brown. "The sooner we educate children about these stereotypes, the sooner (those stereotypes) will be left behind."\n-- Contact staff writer Monica Dix at mcdix@indiana.edu.