Yoigo: Looks that add up | Society
If the story of Oscar has made you think and you also want to help this cause to change the world
Have not you ever been given to read a legal text of any kind and there are parts that you do not understand? And what do you tell me about the electoral programs, which are supposed to be one of the tools we use to choose our rulers and are cryptic? We have all experienced this confusion at some time, although we do not recognize it as a shame. But something that can be anecdotal for most is a real problem for the group of people with intellectual disabilities.
In 2013, the Cooperativa Altavoz It emerged to combat these barriers that are not physical. Today this multidisciplinary team composed of Óscar, Carlos, Arancha and Sara, offers cognitive accessibility services, easy reading and training as tools to make reality more comprehensible to all.
Our capabilities
The day on which I was going to meet the members of the Cooperativa Altavoz, my back contracted. Accustomed to living at an accelerated pace, I thought that, if I could not be present at this meeting, it would be difficult for me to understand and transmit the history of these people.
However, what I thought would be a setback helped me to situate myself in a different plane and with a calmer rhythm from which I have been able to meet these four protagonists through their voices. In addition, listening to their experiences and life trajectories has allowed me to reflect on what our capabilities mean and what we do with them.
Rights for all
When we think about defending our rights, we usually do it from a restrictive perspective: we take into account a majority of society and even people with physical disabilities. However, those with intellectual disabilities are not present in these claims.
I became aware of this important omission when listening to Óscar Pueyo, Speaker of Speaker, during the interview for this report. Óscar talks about his career to be part of this business project to "improve the lives of all people." Óscar wants what anyone can want: "Having a partner, even if it does not come out, nothing happens because life goes on." And he proudly embodies the philosophy of Speaker: "If it's not fun, it's not a speaker, that is, if we do not go to the office happy, something happens." Someone who wanted to "drive a long-distance train" as a child being part of the engine of a pioneering initiative that has a great social impact.
Óscar defends the importance of knowing our rights as a central aspect of his work. Know them and make it easier for others to know them But when he and Carlos Villota, another cooperative of Altavoz, talk about rights, they take into account the whole world. "Understanding what you put in a contract or in a book is a fundamental right and we help other people to be independent," Carlos explains, referring to one of the lines of work they have about easy reading. And, in that process of making a text accessible, as they did in the last elections with the electoral programs, we all won.
Make visible other realities
According to him last report on the state of poverty in Spain, the State Disability Observatory warns that "people with disabilities bear a much higher risk of poverty and / or exclusion than those who do not have disabilities". This fact makes it essential for a company like Speaker because it opens other possibilities on how to build new business models. It is not that there are places where certain roles are developed by people with disabilities, but that there are people with and without disabilities working together to talk about true integration.
After learning about the work of Speaker, I have become aware of the number of people and invisible collectives that exist in our society, how we underestimate their contributions to the world and how necessary these projects are.
Discover the limits
If you realize, the things we are good at as children are reinforced by the people around us. We grow and define ourselves based on these capabilities, even to deny our own limits for fear of being rejected. Thus, when we become adults, most of us do not know how to say no and we develop too often an emotional and work life based on the need, towards oneself and towards others.
In the case of people with intellectual disabilities, the process is usually the opposite. To this group, the society indicates the limit of their capacities since they are born and, during their growth, they have to break those barriers that have imposed on them and allow themselves to live and make mistakes. In Loudspeaker combine these two situations daily: the acceptance of the limits of some and the struggle to break down barriers imposed from outside of others. As Arancha Cejudo, a volunteer member of Altavoz, says, "we are not in an operating table and, if we make a mistake, nothing happens".
Lose the fear
Sara Rodríguez, Cooperativa de Altavoz, talks about "letting go of the fear of meeting people with disabilities and starting to treat people". In addition, he gives a perfect example when talking about the importance of giving up our privileges to listen to the other, giving him his time. I, like Sara, am impatient and it's hard for me to lower the frantic pace in which I live. Therefore, when operating from the haste and urgency, how are we going to stop to listen to those who put their lives before work? We are frightened by what we do not know and what an internal conflict may pose, but we are losing the opportunity to know other ways of living and other people from whom we have much to learn.
Add capabilities
In a society very focused on the intelligentsia and in which we hide what we can not do out of fear of what others think, a team of people worry that we can all access knowledge easily and without restrictions. These professionals work daily combining their diversity of knowledge and looks. We are lucky to have the skills of Óscar, Carlos, Arancha and Sara. How can we not want to multiply the voices that come out of this Speaker?
Do you want to know the full story?
look at her
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Content adapted from Oscar's video
00:30
As a child I was in an integration school where some people with disabilities were going, but I changed my home and went to an ordinary school where ... things did not go so well. The teachers did not know how to deal with people with disabilities. Without knowing much what we were doing, we designed a project and it cost us a lot more to find entrepreneurs without disabilities.
01:13
Óscar was one of the first people selected for the first team of partners before starting in 2013 and when we called him to say, "Hey, Óscar, we're counting on you," he said no.
01:25
Because it was so much responsibility, maybe I was not prepared to be an entrepreneur and run my own company.
01:36
And when he was ready, he hit the jump. Altavoz is a social integration cooperative where we are people with and without disabilities and we are dedicated to improving the lives of all people. We carry out cognitive accessibility studies. It is everything that has to do with spaces, objects and the environment. How can I use an environment and move around it without problems. We have been to some museums, for example, in the Thyssen.
02:17
You imagine going to an airport in a country where you do not know the language, what will have happened to you sometime, how is your experience if the signaling is not good? Okay, well this is cognitive accessibility, that is, there are many people who face that to which we face punctually during all the days of your life.
02:35
We do not apply an innovative vision and we show the world how we can adapt to anyone. I think it's a right, right? That everyone can access information. Speaker so far is getting, I believe, day by day to show that people are capable. I think there are two types of people ... Those who hit each other, fall and stay on the ground and those who hit each other and, despite the pain, get up and move on.
This content has been developed by Yoigo.
