“I felt empowered afterward that I could talk to people in large crowds.” – Betty King, Chair, Terrace Self Advocates
By Betty King
Hello, my name is Betty King. I am the chair person for the Terrace self advocates. I have been the chair person for three years now.
We had a self advocate conference on October 2 in Terrace. It was at the long house at the college. The self advocates planned this conference for several months.
I helped with the food, venue, and speakers. It was a lot of hard work to get this together. The theme for the conference was “empowerment.” We had our drumming group open the conference. This group is made up of all self advocates. We had speakers come and talk to us and show us things.
One of the speakers came all the way from Prince George. His name was Cory Walker. He is an adult who has autism.
I got to hear one of the speakers, Stacey Tyres. She was talking about and how we can deal with some of our problems. Stacey is a poverty law advocate here in Terrace. We asked her questions about some of the things that are happening in Terrace because she is part of city council. I asked about getting a street light fixed by where I live, and about three weeks later it was fixed!
We also had Cecile Bohme speak. She is a retired community living employee. Another speaker we had was Morgan Reinsbakken. She is an art therapist. She taught us how to paint.
The purpose of our conference is so we can get people from other places to come and talk to us and help with what we need and how we can get it. Yes, I felt empowered afterward that I could talk to people in large crowds.
