Disapedia:About

From Disapedia

Mission Statement

To provide the disabled individuals all the community, information and resources they could want or need.

Statement of Principles

History

Disapedia was created by Peter O'Connell on May 21st 2007. It was spurred on by the belief that, while there were many fantastic resources on the internet for disabled individuals, many were neglected, outdated and inaccessible. His belief was that a centralized location maintained by a community of disabled individuals would insure that the information on the website always remained up to date and could help ease the lives of other disabled people

Reason for Creation

What makes Disapedia special? Why should anyone spend their time visiting or, more importantly, contributing to a site when there hundreds if not thousands of sites ostensibly dedicated to the same cause. The answer is control. The community controls its destiny on the website not just in name, but in actual physical control. For so long the battle for the disability community has been over the ability to gain control of their lives. Why should their communities and forums be any different?

So, just as the advent of the internet allowed the disabled community to cover the world and find individuals who shared the same struggles and joys of being disabled, the next shift in the internet, Web 2.0, has the potential to have just as big of an impact on the disabled community. In an era of collaborative efforts and such project as Wikipedia, MySpace, or Diggit, we have a chance to create a place that reflects our own desires. Many sites have tried to do it in the past, but because they were started by just an individual or a small group of people, they failed, or the project was abandoned and eventually became out of date. With a community though, there are thousands to make sure that Disapedia will always remain up to date and the best resource for disability on the internet, no matter what the subject.

In part it gives us a chance to right one of the greatest wrongs within our own community: we have reached a point of stagnation. We have gained legitimacy and the disability rights movement has achieved a level of recognition in the eyes of the establishment and the population in general. The result is that we have lost a lot great deal of direction. We have made great strides and have seen some progress towards equality; however, as a result, the disabled community has become fractured over the direction and next step of the movement. Rifts appear at almost every point. Furthermore, there is a generation gap that endangers the cohesion of the community. The elder generation is incensed by their perception of younger disabled individuals taking for granted the rights that they dedicated their lives to secure. The younger generation refuses to make their lives about one just one facet of their existence. They see their forebearers as people who are obsessed with just one topic, and are completely unable to change with current times. Various disabilities have fractured and pursued their own agenda, whether it be mobility, sensory psych, developmental or learning. Falling back into their exclusive groups, members in those groups have taken an "us first" attitude at the expense of the community as a whole. Don't let this be construed as a condemnation of disability-specific organizations. They serve a great purpose and help solved problems that no one outside of the disability will ever fully understand. The problem occurs when members isolate themselves and refuse to view other individuals' disabilities as having equal validity. Lastly, there is a large group of individuals, who seemingly refuse to acknowledge their disabilities as a part of their lives. They feel that, since they have overcome all the disability-related obstacles in their life, they don't need to participate in the community. Many of these abstainers feel that those in the movement are obsessed with disability and refused to talk about anything else. The result though is that individuals rarely have all their problems incorporated into their care and they thus miss out on improving the quality of their own lives. These reasons and many more have made us needlessly suffer.

This site is created as a place where people of all disabilities and supporters can come and talk, not just about disability, but life in general. A resource where eventually all questions questions can be answered in a few clicks or a search. One my greatest heroes is Ed Roberts, the father of the modern disability rights movement. He founded the UC Berkeley Disabled Students Program a program. It has become the largest in the country and serves nearly a thousand disabled students of all types. When interviewed in 1970 after having just receiving the first grant money to start the program ,he was asked what the purpose of this new program would be. His response was,

"I'm tired of well meaning noncripples with their stereotypes of what I can and cannot do directing my life and my future. I want cripples to direct their own programs and to be able to train other cripples to direct new programs. This is the start of something big -- cripple power."

So I challenge you to continue that tradition into an new era. Put aside any divisions you may feel and be welcomed into a community. Join and participate in one of the greatest projects that disabled community has attempted. With the help of you and others the possibilities are infinite.