"It's Our Story" says "Spread our story of the rights and abilities of people with disabilities: A 10 day countdown to the Americans with Disabilities Act Anniversary. Massive promotion of these messages at one time puts our story right in everyone's face - making it impossible for anyone to ignore our civil rights another day and getting us one step closer to creating a truly inclusive society just as the Americans with Disabilities Act did 20 years ago."From the "It's Our Story" web site. The YouTube channel is available here.
“It’s Our Story” is an inside view of the reality of life with a disability. It speaks directly from the voices of those who know what it’s like, and directly to those who want to know how it is. The content contained within the archives has the power to change the way the world sees disability, and the way the disability community sees itself.
Once the website is fully functional, visitors will have access to 600 hours of modern dialogue and 50 hours of historic archives. Users will be able to understand the past and express the future. The “It’s Our Story” archives will facilitate the telling of an informed story that is meaningful to the current disability experience.
Students will be able to create unique educational projects, artists will be able to express new views, and advocates will be able to articulate the causes they fight for. This vast pool of resources invites users of all ages and aptitudes to participate in crafting a community voice. A simple search, drag, and drop process allows even inexperienced editors to share their perspectives. The individual profiles will searchable by: issue, culture, and demographic viewpoints. The archives contain responses from 62 cities around the nation, so there is no shortage of local voices to add relevance to any piece.
The innovative concept that drives “It’s Our Story” is unique because it invites the online community to create the dialogue. It turns the process of creation on its head; rather than a dialogue of one going out to all, it is the dialogue of all going to one. In essence, it reaffirms the attitude of “all for one - one for all” in a completely new way. This is achieved by giving the power of edit to the online community to create “It’s Our Story”.
The result will be something never before attempted on such a huge scale for people with disabilities. We will monitor the website and the storylines created by its users. Artists will blend the dialogues crafted by the community into a presentable format that can eventually be produced into a marketable DVD collection.
“It’s Our Story” is a collection of inside knowledge that the world needs to know about. We would be better citizens if our culture understood the complete scale of life experience. We simply cannot exclude disability from our history because disability defines our history. Our children need an understanding of what came before them so they may better identify with their own experience. Our story has the power to change perceptions. We have the ability to create a positive image of disability. We can use the voices of our history to shape a vision of our future.
It’s our story; let’s make our story stick.
