Non-Renewable Resources: The Contributions of Citizens with Developmental Disabilities By Krista J. Flint, manager of social marketing Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre of Calgary (DDRC) Our most deeply powerful attributes as citizens is our ability to contribute to the betterment of the human family. Inherent in this is an understated and yet profound assumption of competency. Becoming the “giver of support” rather than the receiver, is an often-overlooked vehicle to shifting the power differential that resides so often in the experience of people with developmental disabilities. Call it charity or benevolence; one can’t over look the danger in a constant and unending role as the recipient of these efforts. To what degree then, could this change in roles, forever alter our paradigm about the ways in which we measure the value and contributions of one another? What is the value of one who teaches us to be more human? Persons with developmental disabilities are taking their rightful place as classmates, employees, neighbours and for the first time, as volunteers. Communities are coming to see that schools, workplaces, and neighbourhoods are bereft without the participation of those people who have been arguably among the most marginalized. Sadly, many people with developmental disabilities have experienced profound wounding as a result of segregation, isolation, loneliness, poverty, and institutionalization. The effect of such is often the most disabling of conditions. What could be learned from these experiences, and from the untapped potential for empathy and support that exists in people with developmental disabilities? For some time we have known how good it is for people with developmental disabilities to participate in the volunteer sector. It has provided valuable job skills training for people for whom entry into the workforce has been difficult, if not impossible. It has allowed many to experience the camaraderie and soul-affirming effects of working in a group to achieve something larger than any individual’s set of circumstances. Litanies of these positive effects have been both researched, and documented. But what of the value to community volunteer resources? We can no longer afford the cost of ignoring the depth and significance of the giftedness that exists in the participation of people with developmental disabilities. It is imperative that we focus greater resources on formulating and articulating the reasons that communities are better and stronger when they include individuals with disabilities. We need to use vast and far reaching tools to demonstrate to the world that all of our children benefit when children with disabilities learn in regular classrooms. We must find ways to illustrate that the approaches used to include an individual with a disability as a volunteer, are the same ones we can employ to access the important resources of new Canadians, or new moms as volunteers. Accommodation and inclusion are most often a matter of rethinking our approaches to inviting participation. And reengineering these approaches to create strategies that will welcome those whose gifts of which we are most in need. We must invest the appropriate resources in challenging ourselves and those in volunteer resources to consider the terrible cost of ignoring this potential. Our volunteer sector, our communities, and indeed our human family are in terrible danger of forever losing the ability to see the giftedness in each other. It should always be most evident in the way we give freely of ourselves to improve the lot of another. The human condition is one of interconnectedness. The key to ensuring this important link exists in the voluntary contribution (and in the act of welcoming the contributions) of those with developmental disabilities as the bestower of important gifts…gifts we can little afford to live without. Back to articles.

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