Disability Pride Month: Why It Matters to Me

Hello everyone! My name is Alexandria, and I’m the Program Apprentice for Arts Connections. Today I want to blog about something that means a lot to me — Disability Pride Month.

The reason I felt inspired to write this is because this month reminds me that people with disabilities, like myself, deserve to be treated fairly and with patience, just like anyone else. We are people too, and we all want to feel like we belong and are cared for.

Disability Pride Month is about accepting people with disabilities and treating them like you would treat anybody else — with kindness, love, and respect.

For example, I haven’t always felt like I was cared for the way I should’ve been. There were times where people were really impatient with me, and that didn’t feel good. So if you’re someone who doesn’t have a disability, my advice is: show people like me a little more love, a little more respect, and try to be more patient. It really goes a long way.

This special month happens every July. We celebrate it to help all people with disabilities feel accepted, supported, and proud of who they are.

At Arts Connections, we celebrate Disability Pride Month by doing all kinds of creative art activities with the people we work with. It’s a fun and positive way to let people express themselves and feel included.

One way I describe this holiday is that it’s about making sure people with disabilities get to live their best life. That means not being too strict with us, but instead, giving us the right kind of patience and encouragement.

The word “pride” to me means feeling proud of everything we’ve done — even the small things. Like doing our best in art class, or trying something new. For example, in collage, we get to choose pictures and themes that show what we love or how we feel. We also have songwriting and acting classes, where we get to take ideas from movies or music and turn them into our own songs and scenes. It helps us be creative and tell our stories.

At Arts Connections, the goal is to help people with disabilities express themselves through art. That’s really important, because sometimes we don’t feel good about ourselves. But Pride Month reminds us that we are good enough — just like everyone else.

Thank you for reading! Let’s remember to lift each other up, and celebrate who we are — this month and every month.