{"id":10407,"date":"2023-03-16T09:08:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=10407"},"modified":"2023-03-16T12:56:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:56:43","slug":"nothing-about-us-without-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2023\/03\/16\/nothing-about-us-without-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing About Us Without Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Students with Disabilities Advocacy Group Exceeds Expectations as a New Student Organization<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Founding Executive Committee: L-R: Emily Hennessey, Lorena Martinez, Madeline Ryan Smith, Brianne Dollar, Jill King<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Three friends spent their early years at Georgia Southern joining a variety of student groups, but they never quite felt at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone said \u2018you should start your own club,\u2019\u201d said Jill King, a psychology major who is legally blind. \u201cWe’re all like, huh? That’s a good idea, let’s go with it. We saw a need and we decided to fill it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudents with Disabilities Advocacy Group [SDAG], was started out of necessity,\u201d said Double Eagle, past president and founder, Madeline Ryan Smith (\u201920,\u201922). She just happens to also be legally blind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost organizations on campus don’t prioritize disabled student voices,\u201d King said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, King and fellow cofounder Brianne Dollar were all disappointed in the inaccessibility and ableism that was frequently present in groups they tried, even groups that were ostensibly created to help disabled students. But because those groups historically had no disabled members, disability was not top of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When SDAG first got off the ground, they were surprised how quickly they could fill the unmet need, not just for themselves but for the larger Georgia Southern community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a lot more disabled students on campus than we originally thought,\u201d said King. \u201cWe would have an information table in Russell Union and people would say, \u2018oh my gosh, there\u2019s a club for people like me?\u2019 And we would say, heck yeah, join us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing About Us Without Us<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accessibility is important not just for University clubs but for the entire southeast region of the United States. The Center for Disease Control tells us that 26% of adults in the United States have some type of disability and the percentage of people living with disabilities is highest in the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem with disability access in University buildings is that they were designed without disability input,\u201d said King. \u201cThere are accessible entrances with ramps, but sometimes they’re just not enough. Some buildings might have elevators but they are tiny, so it\u2019s hard to navigate when you are in a wheelchair. I’m like, hey, I’m a disabled person, please listen to me before you assume what you need to do for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have checked off the boxes to meet ADA legal requirements, but that is just the bare minimum required by law,\u201d said Smith. \u201cAnd that’s exactly why SDAG was founded. We knew as disabled students that we were the only ones advocating for ourselves, which is why we have the saying in the community, nothing about us without us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Than Community<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What began with the simple need to find community has in its second year grown to over 40 members. The group keeps busy with numerous events and community outreach such as Disability Community Week and fundraising events for many disability-related organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year we did Guiding Eyes for the Blind, a guide dog school in New York where Madeline got her dog,\u201d said King. \u201cAnd there’s Camp Twin Lakes, where they do camps for kids with different conditions like cancer. And then the third one is Friends of Disabled Adults and Children based in Georgia. One of the big things they do is they give wheelchairs to people who are in need of them but can’t afford them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of SDAG\u2019s actions have reached more than Statesboro, with national award nominations and wins for individuals as well as the entire group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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King received the 2022 National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Georgia Young Leader Award and was awarded the Rookie of the Year Award from the Social Health Network, an organization which promotes communication and leadership within the health care community. SDAG was a finalist for Best Team and Smith was nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Social Health Network. Dollar received the Steven Bochco Award from Gift of Life for being responsible for registering over 300 bone marrow donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Than a Disability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a disability is just part of these ladies\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith ran last November for Georgia House District 158. The first-time candidate received 30% of the vote and is planning to run again in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dollar recently left Statesboro and SDAG for a job in Milledgeville, Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith and King have started a social media, graphic design and marketing agency for nonprofits that focus on the disabled community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now we are working with several nonprofits in our business, Blind Bear Creative, focusing on digital accessibility and disabled representation in all forms of media.\u201d said Smith. \u201cSDAG really taught me social media magic and the value of graphic design as part of advocacy. A lot of the disabled community is on social media because that’s how we connect to the outside world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ladies are unusual in having gained full employment as disabled persons. Although one in four of the U.S. population is disabled, full employment is low. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, from November 2020 to November 2022 the labor force participation rate of persons with disabilities was 38.8% versus 76.9% for persons without a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Smith has graduated, she is still involved with SDAG events. The group was designed so graduates can still be a part of
the activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve blossomed into this advocacy group that has actually gotten a lot done on our college campuses and has become a really great, safe haven for people with disabilities,\u201d said Smith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s a tiny but mighty advocacy group.\u201d \u2014 Liz Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smith\u2019s graduation photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Georgia Southern students create the Students with Disabilities Advocacy Group to give disabled students a voice on campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":10411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-10407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-spring-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}