While going through this week's interactive lecture I came to the Sue Austin video about her and her wheelchair. I found this video especially moving and it made me open my eyes to see a wheelchair as more than just a restraint to that person. In the video, Sue Austin uses words like restraint, pity, and disabled to describe a wheelchair. These are all words that most people would think of at first. She goes on to describe the wheelchair as a symbol of freedom and a "portal" to more than she could do before. This made me think a lot harder about the object and I realized how big of a freedom symbol the object really is. A person with the inability to walk can't experience the breeze of moving in their face or the freedom to go somewhere by themselves. A wheelchair gives them this ability and for Sue Austin it gave her the ability to get back in the ocean.
I work many people in my water walking program who spend their lives in wheelchairs. The cool thing about my service learning group is that it gives the people a chance to get in the pool and move by themselves out of the wheelchair. I think this is very important for them to be able to do. While the wheelchair is an assistive object and a symbol of freedom, it is important for someone who uses a wheelchair to lose the sense of dependability on the wheelchair and move by themselves in the pool. The smiles on their faces never go away in the pool and its awesome to see some of the participants gain a lot of confidence and independence in the pool.
I also know a lot of people who need a wheelchair in the community where I live. While I was in high school I worked with another program that took kids who needed wheelchairs out turkey hunting. I am a big hunter and enjoy the outdoors so it was very fun to share it with these kids. There were wheelchairs that had guns attached to them and could be controlled with a joy stick and allowed for kids in wheelchairs to shoot by themselves. Shooting s bird gave the kids a huge sense of accomplishment and put on huge smile on their face after seeing the bird go down. It was an awesome and unique way to spend time with some of these kids and make their lives a little better however I could. AS far as the wheelchair goes itself, some of them were unbelievable in the places they could go.
During this weeks lecture and reading and after reflecting on the things I thought about wheelchairs, I went from thinking restraint at first to freedom now.
I work many people in my water walking program who spend their lives in wheelchairs. The cool thing about my service learning group is that it gives the people a chance to get in the pool and move by themselves out of the wheelchair. I think this is very important for them to be able to do. While the wheelchair is an assistive object and a symbol of freedom, it is important for someone who uses a wheelchair to lose the sense of dependability on the wheelchair and move by themselves in the pool. The smiles on their faces never go away in the pool and its awesome to see some of the participants gain a lot of confidence and independence in the pool.
I also know a lot of people who need a wheelchair in the community where I live. While I was in high school I worked with another program that took kids who needed wheelchairs out turkey hunting. I am a big hunter and enjoy the outdoors so it was very fun to share it with these kids. There were wheelchairs that had guns attached to them and could be controlled with a joy stick and allowed for kids in wheelchairs to shoot by themselves. Shooting s bird gave the kids a huge sense of accomplishment and put on huge smile on their face after seeing the bird go down. It was an awesome and unique way to spend time with some of these kids and make their lives a little better however I could. AS far as the wheelchair goes itself, some of them were unbelievable in the places they could go.
During this weeks lecture and reading and after reflecting on the things I thought about wheelchairs, I went from thinking restraint at first to freedom now.