Not all Disabilities are Visible
International Day
of Persons with Disabilities
December 3rd marks the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities #IDPwD.
The world population is currently over 7 billion people and more than one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population, live with some form of disability.
The focus of #IDPwD2021 is to shine a light on leadership and participation of persons with disabilities toward an inclusive, accessible and sustainable post-COVID-19 world. One factor in this is raising awareness of disabilities which may not be immediately apparent but can still have an impact on people's lives, and even more profoundly so during this prolonged pandemic. Invisible disabilities can include learning differences, chronic pain, and sight or hearing impairments among others.
“The emotional impact from the difficulties I experience daily in communicating with people, especially strangers, can definitely be hard to manage. ”
Lily’s Story: I Can’t Hear You
“I am 25-years-old and have been hearing impaired since birth. I have hearing aids and have developed lip reading skills to help me cope. However, my device and skills do not make me hearing abled. There are many environments where I can’t hear you. People I interact with in those situations can act unkindly as they assume I am ‘ignoring’ them… because the background noise is causing feedback in my device, because the table next to ours is talking loudly while you ask to take my order, because a car raced by just as you were saying hello to me,… I would normally rely on lip reading in many of these challenging environments, but COVID has taken that away from me. The emotional impact from the difficulties I experience daily in communicating with people, especially strangers, can definitely be hard to manage. So I just want to say, please show others grace. They may be coping with a disability that is not obvious to you.”
photo credit: UNICEF/Uganda/Barbeyrac/un.org