On April 9, for the first time in ETHS history, a conference centered around experiences related to having a disability, dubbed the Abilities Conference, was held. The conference took place during Abilities Awareness week, which featured other events like mural painting done by ETHS and Park School students.
“I think the conference was an eye-opening experience because having a space where people with disabilities can get together is something that’s not very prominent, especially within school. So it just felt kind of refreshing to have a space to do that where we could be ourselves and belong to a community,” said senior attendee Joe Salgado.
There were many different sessions that made up the conference, including some that focused on life after high-school.
“We saw a person on Zoom being interviewed about her college experience and she had a chronic illness and was autistic and she talked about what that was like,” said sophomore attendee Sloane Reyes.
Another session Reyes attended was about how the media portrays disabled people. Unfortunately, the speaker for that workshop did not attend. Reyes explained that she was disappointed in this but was able to start a conversation with other people in the session about the topic.
The conference was important to many participants because for many years, people with disabilities were not able to speak out about their rights and what disability they may have.
“We have been truly ignored, hurt, villainized and just mistreated daily since the beginning of time. The thing about disability is that objectively, I say this as a disabled person, it is like all the potential of what can go wrong about a person and people don’t want to be around that. I hope when I grow up and my children are born, that the world is more understanding and accommodating of disabled people,” said Reyes.
A topic of focus the past few years has been the idea of changing the term “disabilities” to “abilities.” Last year, students voted on the name of the conference, eventually settling on the current name, however, both Reyes and Salgado believe that the name should be “disability.”
“So they say ‘it’s not a disability, it’s a part of me,’ but that takes away from the fact that we do have a disability, that we do need to be accommodated,” said Reyes. “That’s okay, just call us like we are.”
Along with Reyes’ words, Salgado explained his belief when it comes to the topic of changing the name from “abilities” to “disabilities.”
“It’s a long process right now so some students, myself included, are wanting to change the name just because we feel that ‘abilities’ isn’t really representing disabilities enough and kind of shying away from the topic,” he said.
When asked about what could be improved about the conference, Salgado explained his only respectful complaint.
“I think first off, it’s important to say that this is the first year they did it so props to the people who started it, but I think going forward what can be improved is the workshops we had but more specifically the content that was available and provided,” he said.
Reyes agreed with Salgado in the fact that it was the first time an Abilities Conference had happened and that it was inevitable for it to have some hiccups. They added to this by noting that the conference seemed a little bit messy and not all put together.
But even with their comments on improvement, both Reyes and Salgado shared how grateful they were that it was held this year at all.
“I think doing the conference in the future is something that needs to happen. It’s very beneficial but also necessary,” said Salgado.
Abilities Week and the Abilities Conference was a success that was extremely important to the disabled community.
“Above all the biggest idea of Abilities Week is building awareness to the topic and making people excited for it just like any other week or summit at ETHS,¨ said Salgado.
