Ollibean Think Tank

Ollibean Think Tank2012-06-27T10:32:21+00:00

Being Where I Can Simply Be

After a three-day conference, I needed to sleep. I needed to sleep because I was dreamy, trying to keep the feeling of being in a place where I can be myself and also be a little bit like a star. Also, building community.

  • Girl with brown hair , blue tshirt is holding an iPad out in front of her. Her face is obscured by the iPad. Boy with Brown Hair holds a white sign that says " The Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted equal rights to all people. I am a person. I want these rights.

A Sister Stands with Her Brother: I Am Heard, I Am Important, and I Am Included

No one wants to be the excluded one, the one to stand alone in silence, the one left out of the conversation. No one wants to be forgotten. So why are some individuals treated this way? Luckily it just takes one person to stand up and include, and the rest will follow. Be that person, take a stand, make a difference.

The Presumption of Competence

Presumption of competence is more than an abstract idea. It has real and concrete effects. Here is one: it is better than a makeover.

Ollibean: All of a kind

The faces of Ollibean are kids with and without disabilities all trying to make the world a better place.

  • Because we are all human beings and ‘disability’ does not define a person. And I hated social injustice and inequality from a very young age. I dislike ‘disability labels’ and I feel that children deserve something better than to be segregated and denied an equal education and a means of communication on grounds of disability. Richard Attfield activist. author. human.

Change Leader: Richard Attfield

Richard Attfield, a contributing author to "Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone", is passionate about the rights of children with disability labels to have equal access to education and communication supports.

  • Ollibean Think Tank Amy Sequenzia Advocacy on turquoise and green background

Amy Sequenzia:Dear Mainstream Media

I am an autistic woman, non-speaking and I have many needs.Yes, dear mainstream media, I am the autistic supposedly too “low-functioning” to deserve to be heard. You pity me and you ignore the facts.

‘Autistic People Are’ by Amy Sequenzia

Autistic People Are

 

Awesome!

 

Autistic People are the real experts on autism.

 

Autistic people are not

more complicated than non-autistics.

Autistic people are

misunderstood and mischaracterized by non-autistics.

 

Autistic people are artistic and we don’t need speech to show our talents.

 

Autistic people

  • Ollibean Think Tank Amy Sequenzia Advocacy on turquoise and green background

Ollibean Think Tank Member Amy Sequenzia

Amy Sequenzia is a poet and autistic self-advocate. Her writing is as beautiful and powerful as she is. She is an extraordinary voice in the disability rights community .

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