Not So Fun Fact: My High Schools Policy For Disabled Fire Evacuation Was Just To Not

Not so fun fact: my high schools policy for disabled fire evacuation was just to not

This needs to be talked about more, I’m sure my school wasn’t the only shitty one. We had no evac plans for our disabilities. We just had to stand next to the elevator and wait for help to come or for someone to call it drill and send us back, traumatised, to our classes.

When I moved to my college, they had to tell me what a personalised evacuation plan was. When we had a fire drill, my new teacher had to guide me out of the room as I shook in fear from the times we had sat upstairs on the third floor smelling smoke from a kitchen fire and not knowing how big that was or if someone was gonna come get us.

I was lucky, back then, that 2 sixteen year olds were in their last year, and had done this countless times before. They comforted me while I freaked out. That one was a drill. When there were fires, they were small and easily controlled, but when those came I was older, I comforted the younger students as we all stood there with the stench of burning filling our nostrils. Sometimes we’d move up the hall to the hallway balcony areas and lean over to see if the cafeteria was the culprit. We’d text friends outside asking for explanations, updates. Was it real, was it drill, where is the fire?

Sometimes I find myself beating myself up. Sometimes I say there was never any real threat, stop being dramatic.

But that’s not fair, no teenagers, no children, should have to spend a day every few months in fear waiting for a fire that might not be there. It’s cruel and it’s fucking lazy.

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disability disability rights

reblog if you think sign language should be taught as a language in schools.

Tags

sign language

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1 month ago

Did you know?

Searching for Cane Decorating (as in the mobility aid) gets you pages of results for Christmas craft videos. Even specifiying by adding the term "disability" or "mobility" still leaves you with a bunch of DIY home decor with cane webbing, for some reason.

So! Here's some videos to get you started on making your mobility aid reflect your personality:

First is this video featuring a lot of general discussion around mobility aids and being disabled, but does feature large sections for making your aids work for you in a fashionable way--including how to wear heels while using a cane!

Next, we have this short and sweet (under 5 mins.) aesthetically pleasing video on decorating a cane, that's not just using stickers or bedazzling. It's quite a unique end-product that I haven't seen with other mobility aid customizations.

EDIT NOTE: while the above creator is femme presenting, the result is pretty gender neutral and looks like a high fantasy elf's cane!

This is another video for decorating that isn't just stickers and bedazzling, but it's much longer than the previous vids with a lot of the YouTuber (Voice Actress Cari Favole) talking about their life and disability in the first 14 minutes before starting the customization.

Last off, is this video review about just buying a walking stick that is already fashionable and customized for you.

Do you know any other videos about making your mobility aid work with your fashion & personality that you love? Feel free to add them below!

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1 month ago

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1 month ago

Okay this is gong to sound condescending on several levels but:

There's a kind of cliche about training a dog - that if you want it to always come when it's called, you should never scream at or punish it when it does. Even if you just spent twenty minutes getting increasingly panicked thinking it was dead in the woods! Even if it had been trampling through the neighbors garden! It is very important that it's direct association is 'stopping whatever super interesting thing I was doing to go back to human = being praised and rewarded'. If the association is instead being screamed at or punished, the dog will be less enthusiastic to stop whatever fun thing it's doing to run to that.

I feel like a great many people would noticably improve their own lives if they started applying the same logic to how they treated other humans.

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1 week ago

LAST DAY TO SIGN

Hi Prideknights!

You're based in Europe, right? Could you help out signal-boosting this European citizens initiative to ban conversion therapy in the EU?

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/#/screen/home

I don't think I have to explain the horrors of conversion therapy to you, so let me explain how this initiative works.

For it to get taken seriously by the EU, we need two things:

7 countries need to reach the minimum threshold of signatures for their country. We're currently at 6 out of 7! Slovenia only needs 300 more signatures to become country number 7!

We need a total of 1 million signatures. This might look daunting, but there days ago we were still at 200.000. Yesterday we were at 450.00. We are at 535.000 right now. So we have a long way to go, but we are moving fast!

The deadline is in a few days, on May 17.

Anybody with a European citizenship can add their name to the pile! If we reach the right amount, the official citizen initiative will be put before the EU Commission.

With lgbtq+ rights getting rolled back across the world, including Europe, there is no time to lose to demand stronger protections.

eci.ec.europa.eu

European Citizens' Initiative

Give your support !

MAY 14, 2025 (VERY RELEVANT) SPREAD. THIS. LIKE. WILDFIRE!!!

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1 month ago

#Repost @gogreensavegreen

You might be more than one. You might be different ones at different times. 🫶🏽🫶🏽 you might not be one of these. There are more roles 💪🏽 but this is an amazing intro.

You can’t just like the idea and envision yourself in one of these roles you have to figure out how to be about it ♥️🫶🏽

Via @deiloh & @fablefulart

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1 week ago

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disability news medicaid

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1 month ago

physically disabled people should be allowed to do activities that might cause a flare up or illness without other people acting like the time they need to recover is no longer owed to them.

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4 weeks ago