Behind the wheels

Only one more problem

During an event I heard the speaker refer to people with disabilities as special people, people with different abilities, people with special abilities and people who are also human. Far from the criticism that could be made from an extreme point of view of inclusion, and equally removed from the permission issued from another point of view more open to assess that the expressions were not burdened with prejudice but ignorance, the various references They remembered a book that last year came to my hands signed by its author.

"Behind the wheels" is not only the story of Adrián Ponce's love, but a declaration open to the public to incorporate into our daily lives the integral coexistence of people with disabilities. In Mexico, according to the INEGI, 5.1% of the population lives with some type of disability. The rest are susceptible to acquire any at any time.

With almost 6 million people with disabilities living in Mexico, it would be difficult to understand why we do not live with any of them daily. The environment is a main reason, but I do not consider it the most important one. It is our ignorance about disability that greatly affects the full development of people in an environment of integral inclusion. And this adds to the burden that disability can represent on the person who lives with it. Citing Adrián "one of the worst qualities that disability has, (is) the amazing way in which little by little, sometimes with a simple glance, it destroys your self-esteem until you are only able to see yourself as a load for everyone else, as something they have to do because it's what they touch and there's no other option. "

I did not have in my basic education any kind, mentoring or approach on how to be inclusive. I lived for 13 years in school with a companion who from the day I met him was in a wheelchair. For more than a decade I never had the approach to know the reason. However, I did have the time to be part of ridicule or jokes about his disability, including the same day he was carrying him to climb a building that he lived for six years and that was never enabled with an elevator so that he , or any other person who requires it as someone with a cast foot, will go up and down to the classrooms where he took classes. I know,

Our moral standards must always be active and focus on the greatest benefit of others. Thus, our daily actions towards anyone would be designed for their better development and disability would be just another problem, as Adrián says: "for me, disability is just another problem that we are exposed to when arriving in this world; there is no misfortune or sadness in the fact that I have to make a greater effort in actions that for the majority are almost automatic, or that I can not even do them. "

Adrián says that "the curious thing about disability is the ease it has to take things completely normal for anyone and turn them into something very close to a small hell". Maybe reading "Behind the Wheels" is a good first step for those who wish to reduce the inequalities of our environment and eliminate those hells, but it will not be possible insofar as the possibility of indiscriminately activating and deactivating is not renounced. our moral standards.