Texas, a state where sustaining itself is compared to having the power to be its own county. It is a place where you find natural beauty in coastal beaches, lovely rolling hills, lakes, plateaus, mountains, and most importantly, one finds opportunity; the opportunity for everyone to live life in the pursuit of happiness.
Despite the beauty that it shows, 5,813,254 Texans have a disability Many of these people end up having depression, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or start smoking. While researching about this issue, I stumbled across an organization called Disability Rights Texas (DRTx), where they echo the same ideology as that of Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP). The opportunity that Disability Rights Texas is striving to provide is for awareness, not fortitude. They want to be more well-known so that anyone who needs assistance can turn to them and be guided and given a directing hand to live equally and experience joy that many of us take for granted. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), roughly 1 in 4 adults in the United States have a disability of some sort. This means that roughly 27% of the adults in our country have trouble living the daily life that we find to be “normal” and usual.
One of the main topics that DRTx focuses on is giving equal rights to everyone by providing and assisting with their needs. Some of the many things that Disability Rights Texas assists with include legal assistance, protecting rights, and informing people with disabilities about their rights. Some of their rights that they expand on consist of accessibility, disaster resilience, education, employment, transportation, and many more that can be expanded on by visiting their website.
Much like VOSAP, DRTx is large on public accessibility for people who may find it hard to get around, and they also include communication disabilities in their accessibility by offering services such as braille and sign language interpreters. In many areas, there is not much accessibility for people with disabilities and often times people who use wheelchairs can have a rough time getting places. A way that we, as a community, can help make a change, is we can use the VOSAP Mobile App to rate buildings so specially abled people can know and have an easier way of going from place to place with less complications and struggles.
In a state like Texas, natural disasters tend to be common, ranging from hurricane season and flooding on the coast, to tornadoes that rip through central Texas. I truly applaud DRTx for having a portion of their organization being dedicated to “Disaster Resilience”, where they help Texans with disabilities get through disasters and recover from them as well. In many cases, people with disabilities are not able to fend for themselves when it comes to natural disasters, such as hurricanes. In my local area, hurricane season can be a huge scare, and it is very important that people are able to get to safety as soon as possible and protect themselves and their families.
Another large factor of their organization is education for children in grades K-12. I think this one means a lot because they are able to provide for childen who are usually discriminated against in their classroom by giving them equal opportunities and fairness. Often times, children are put into a stigma of “not being like everyone else”, which can lower self-esteem and cause depression and many other factors. These children can then end up having a harder time getting used to people and making friends out of the fear that nobody would want to be near them, which leads to a very negative mindset
at a young age. One thing that I have learned after helping to create a VOSAP club at our school, is that just by simply making a club to spread awareness, you have already made at least one person feel more involved and cared for.
Lastly, employment and transportation are two of the two larger sections of their organization. They are able to do many things to assist people with disabilities such as helping people get in contact with other programs such as the state vocational rehabilitation program, as well as trying their best to assure that employers don’t discriminate against people just because they have a disability. For transportation, they also try their best to come in contact with transportation providers (public and private) and get them to follow through with the law and make their service more accessible. By having more accessible transportation for everyone, it can really help people get around and they would not have to worry about finding handicapped parking spots, which often sparks an issue. I truly believe that DRTx is doing a remarkable job at spreading awareness, and I think it’s even better that we are able to share the same goal of having a positive change in our society. By helping people and addressing common issues such as accessibility, natural disasters, education, employment, and transportation, it is more than possible and within reach to make a huge impact on someone’s life.
Spreading awareness is an easy task if you put your mind to it and tell yourself that you can change somebody’s life for the better.
Links used for research:
1-2. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/impacts/texas.html
3. https://disabilityrightstx.org/en/home/
https://disabilityrightstx.org/en/what-we-do/how-we-help/
