Season's greetings. Hope for positive change in 2025. Inclusion Alberta

Season’s Greetings: Hope for positive change in 2025

December 18, 2024
An inclusive life is something most of us without disabilities enjoy without question. It’s true when you don’t have a disability, we typically don’t refer to our lives as inclusive, but that’s because our inclusion is assumed. Our lives are rich with family, school, friendships, careers, high expectations, and a sense of belonging – that’s the definition of an inclusive life.

Even as we face challenges, whether its job loss, illness, a failed relationship, or tragedy, no one ever attributes those hardships to a failure of inclusion. No one suggests we should be excluded or segregated for our own good. In fact, it’s the continuity of inclusion and being embedded in our families, with friends and communities that allows us to persevere and move toward a hopeful future.

We instinctively know a meaningful life, filled with opportunities, is only possible through our inclusion in everyday life – it’s simply a given. Our right to belong is rarely questioned. But for people with intellectual disabilities, an inclusive life is often far from guaranteed. From the outside looking in, they see the extraordinary possibilities of an ordinary life and desire nothing less. This is the true essence of hope.

The world, however, is still not a welcoming place for far too many children and adults with intellectual disabilities. The majority of adults with intellectual disabilities remain unemployed and living in poverty, with few opportunities for continued education beyond high school, or employment. School systems continue to debate the merits of inclusive education, while more and more children are being excluded or rejected outright. And children with disabilities continue to be traumatically confined to seclusion rooms with deplorable frequency.

Every day, we hear from families who wait months and sometimes years to get the support their child with disabilities needs to realize their full potential. Adults with intellectual disabilities are told there is no support available for them until their condition deteriorates into a state of urgent crisis – literally a manufactured state of despair.

We are increasingly having to challenge exclusion through the courts, which means it can be years before a child has a chance at an inclusive education or an adult the right to a decent income. Families are floundering as we try to sustain them through school rejection or the lack of opportunities and supports. As a society, we can’t afford to lose our moral bearings by negating and devaluing the lives of persons with intellectual disabilities, leaving them on the margins, as those of us without disabilities flourish in our inclusive lives.

We must not allow even one child or adult with an intellectual disability, or their family, to lose hope.

There is immense power in a family’s love and in their ability to imagine a better future. And there is profound hope when others, like you, join in that belief. It is this collective hope that drives us to continue fighting for needed change.

Together, we must challenge systems that question the value children and adults with intellectual disabilities. In opposing rejection and exclusion, we work toward a future where everyone belongs, and inclusion is as ordinary for someone with an intellectual disability as it is for those of us without disabilities.

Together with families, we’re agents of change. Our Rotary Employment Partnership has created over 850 inclusive jobs, offering individuals the chance to earn an income, belong, and contribute to their communities. Our partnerships with post-secondary institutions are enabling more students with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to pursue higher education, enriching both their futures and their campuses. Through our Family Managed Supports Resource Centre in Calgary, we’ve helped over 800 families plan for inclusive lives and our Family Leadership Series has now supported approximately 800 families over the past 20 years to deepen their capacity to create lives of inclusion and possibility. Every day, our advocates are working across the province with over 120 families to challenge the decisions that threaten their well-being and future.

While this is just a glimpse of our achievements, it demonstrates the profound impact we can make by changing lives one person at a time and shaping the broader world along the way. Together we can create communities where families and individuals feel welcomed and valued. In a sense, this effort comes full circle as individuals with intellectual disabilities enrich all our lives—as classmates, co-workers, teammates, neighbours, and friends.

From all of us at Inclusion Alberta, I wish you and your family a peaceful holiday season and all the very the best now and through the New Year.