Pizza Party Eve

Hello out there!

 

Pizza party eve, you ask? We answer - we are so happy to have won the RQHR World Aids Awareness Day competition! The prize? A pizza party happening tomorrow afternoon in A!TLC. !!! It will greatly add to our first PATH Wednesday, where we will help Student Researcher Kennen set some goals that will help her reach all of her big dreams!

 

Today we selected a book for our new A!TLC Book Club - We will be reading a book called "This is What Happy Looks Like" for a portion of each Thursday. This is a book where a young male celebrity is anonymously exchanging emails with a small town girl. Will they not so anonymously fall in love? Is this "You've Got Mail" for the next generation? Stay tuned to find out.

We also took some time to answer more of your UN day questions! Here are a few to consider....

 

What are some of the biggest barriers that Astonished! faces?

The awareness barrier. Although we have been on campus at the U of R for one full year now, there are lots of people who do not know who we are or what we do here. We have come a very long way in a year and there are many friendly faces and friends of the A!TLC in the hallways, but we would like to do much more. Kin students Jenny and Chelsea were a great help to helping to break this barrier during the Fall 2013 Semester, as they represented and presented Astonished! in classrooms and in the community at large. Thanks so much, ladies!

 

 

How can we work on eliminating stigma regarding disabled students?
The more awareness that is raised around campus, the less stigma there will be. We at the A!TLC are happy to contribute to the diversity on campus and show that the average person who would like to learn in a  wonderful place like the University of Regina comes in all shapes and sizes. The stigma is only as big as you make it. Be patient and be kind.

 

What advice can you give someone who is communicationg with someone who does not use speech as their main form of communication? Specifically, what can they do if it is their first time?  Again, please be patient and be kind. And take your time. Establish how they communicate (Maybe a head nod for yes and a shake for no) and design your questions around yes/no answers. Be creative and look the person who you are communicating with in the eye. Pay attention to any visual cues that you can. And be good to yourself, you are doing your best and communicating with someone that you have just met takes effort (and might be awkward!), no matter if you are using speech or not! Do not get discouraged and keep making that effort. It counts!

 

Thanks so much for reading and take care!