Inside Voice – The Self-Advocate’s Perspective
“Networking for change” by Tanya Norman
My name is Tanya Norman and I am a self advocate from Powell River. I live with my fiancée Andrew. We are planning a wedding for next May which is very exciting for us both. I work at a local service provider in my community. I love to play softball too. The most important thing to me is advocacy and being a leader in the advocacy movement. This is an essay I wrote about being a self-advocate and a leader:
What is self-advocacy? To me, self-advocacy is going out and making sure that your voice is heard on issues that are going around either in you town or in the province. Being a leader and learning to advocate for yourself or your group is a great skill. Learning to speak up can be hard for people especially if you are shy or have fears.
I have learned that being a leader and standing up for my rights as a person with challenges can be hard but if you can get a group together and brainstorm ideas, the world can be a place of understanding and rewards. Before I ever was a self-advocate or knew what a self-advocate was, I explored and got connected and tried to get different issues solved.
Advocating for ourselves can be a difficult process but if you ask for help you will get things done with knowledge and understanding. There are struggles but there are also rewards in advocating. Where you want to get to is having a network around you to help you and show how much you care about your community, your life, and someone else’s life that you care for.
I myself am happy to be able to make someone’s day by doing something nice for them and just helping them out in times of struggle or in troubled times. As I start to learn more and more about advocacy I just want to get out there and tell my story. My journey, and how I became so caring and understanding of where people are coming from in their lives, can inspire other people and so can yours.
I want to see people’s lives being impacted with the support and the power to be able to stand up and be advocates in their communities and in the province. It is so important to get you voice heard and to be strong and to keep demanding change in the community.
Knowing our abilities and being satisfied with our leadership will bring us success and great accomplishment in your advocacy and your community.
Keep up the good work and keep telling your stories.
Inside Voice is published in each issue of The Citizen. If you are interested in writing for this column, please call Chris Rae at 1-877-660-2522 or email editor@communitylivingbc.ca.
