Sometimes I think the disability movement in Aotearoa is progressing at a glacial pace…It is successes like Te Kopa’s and Aroha’s that give me solace. Jonny’s latest A Different Light column – The Northern Advocate, 48 Hours 26th November 2016.
I was elated when I read about Northland College in the Advocate last weekend. They had named their Head Boy and Head Girl for 2017. Both were standout over-achievers as Head Boys and Girls usually are. The article described them as natural born leaders and gifted orators.
[Te Kopa Kopa and Aroha Lawrence. Photo / Debbie Beadle] But what really turned my head was that both Te Kopa Kopa (Head boy) and Aroha Lawrence (Head girl) are wheelchair users.
Northland College is leading the way in providing an inclusive educational environment for young people with physical disabilities. There are different degrees of ‘inclusion’ of disabled people into communities. Inclusion can be claimed when a disabled person is merely co-located in a place with non-disabled people. ‘Participation’ can be claimed when disabled people are doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. But best of all is ‘social valorisation’, when a disabled person is being actively valued by everyone around them.
I am aware that the Northland College has been building up a fleet of basketball wheelchairs so that wheelchair users and non-wheelchair users alike can compete with each other on an equal basis. Te Kopa Kopa has represented New Zealand in the under-23 basketball team for the past two years. I am sure that this integration on the basketball court has contributed to the culture of being inclusive in that school.
I remember back in the day when I went to Whangarei Boys High School. At that time, I think I was the only physical disabled person there. In this era (the early 80’s) Head Boys always seemed to be big rugby players who belonged to the First XV.
Don’t get me wrong, I had inclusive moments at this school. Carruth House, the school’s boarding home where I stayed for a couple of months, did have a great sense of camaraderie, but it wasn’t on the same level as Northland College.
I wanted to know what made Northland College so different, so I rang Te Kopa.
He was excruciatingly humble as leaders often are. He said the students and staff were very supportive. He said that accessibility around the school was difficult sometimes (hopefully the rebuild the college is currently undergoing will alleviate this).
He said when he leaves school he will have a gap year and then go to university to further study Te Reo.
Sometimes I think that the disability movement in Aotearoa is progressing at a glacial pace, crawling along with very little change made. It is successes, like Te Kopa’s and Aroha’s that give me solace.
Their stories show us that progress is being made and Northland is becoming a less disabling place to live in as time marches on.
We will again be celebrating the International Day of People with Disabilities on the Canopy Bridge (Friday December 2, 10am – 2pm). The United Nations named the theme of this year’s day “Sustainable Development-17 goals to transform our world”.
Zzzzzzzzzzz! We thought that theme was spectacularly boring and irrelevant. So we at Tiaho decided we are going to call the day Celebrating Abilities.
In the past I have always cringed about people’s impulse to put a spin on the word ‘abilities’ when talking about disability. It just sounds so cheesy and mealy mouthed for some reason. But this year looking back on the successes of our Northland Paralympics medallist Cameron Leslie (swimming gold medallist), Emma Foy (cycling gold medallist) and Chris Sharp (sailing, fourth overall), it is the abilities of these people which are just so prominent and deserve to be celebrated.
And now two wheelchair users are taking the lead in a school that truly values its disabled scholars as leaders, so indeed let us celebrate the abilities of our disabled Northlanders.
Kia Kaha Northland College!
Downloadable pdf below:
| Available Downloads | Type | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Two super achievers in Northland | 216 KB |