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Retired attorney , Roger Chard talks about a life of
Grit , determination , self-reliance and excellence
Part 2 of 2 . Read part 1 here
" The more we with disabilities can model the point that we are able to participate fully in society , including the workaday world , the more likely it will be that able-bodied people will be comfortable in associating with someone who has a disability and the less likely it will be that disabilities will be regarded with fear and apprehension ."
Inclusive employment
When it comes to hiring , education of potential employers is critical . This is where messages from a magazine like this and steady , relentless messages from blind or otherwise disabled people in , or formerly in , the work force come in . We do not have time to patronize and marginalize our blind population and to waste resources that are found in it . Have we learned nothing from a similar approach to race and gender ? They tend to be at least as educated and technically proficient as their sighted counterparts , but something in the neighborhood of 70 percent to 75 percent of working-age blind adults , as distinct from the visually impaired , are unemployed or underemployed . Hiring reluctance frequently is
premised solely on stereotypical projection and assumption supported by scant , misinterpreted or no evidence . Before considering whether people with disabilities can find solutions on the job that may elude others who do not have a disability , consider how people with disabilities approach any job , especially where safety may be an issue . Massive studies covering thousands of workers conducted by the Veterans Administration after World War II showed disabled workers had better work safety records than their so-called normal counterparts , precisely because they thought about their safety . For instance , they did not reorient machines or tie back guards in order to achieve greater speed . Requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act , together with expanding technological support , makes accommodating workers with disabilities easier and less daunting , and a combination of living experience and new technology increases the odds that a person with a disability will come up with imaginative ways to circumvent tricky work challenges .
From the standpoint of potential blind workers , we must be prepared to answer well intended questions about how we do or would do things , but not to stop there . We must make it clear that we want to show what we can do , to go to work , to work hard , to mingle and socialize like every other worker . We cannot be content with threshold matters of information gathering , idle curiosity , understanding , and acceptance , especially where