Today, Renisha Rivers - Washington County Connector for the Arkansas PROMISE program - shares her personal experiences with disability and how that helps her to better support transition-age youth who are enrolled in the PROMISE program.
TRANSCRIPT:
Working for Arkansas Promise allows me to reach a population that can benefit from a positive impact early on in their life. These are students who have disabilities that range from moderate to severe. Having a disability myself I understand what it is like to face challenges. Not only challenges my disability causes me to face, but challenges society may create for me. When I first sustained a spinal cord injury at 19 my image of someone with a disability was a person who had no independence. Becoming involved in the rehabilitation field this image has changed. I had no one with a disability to look up to and see that I can still live a productive life. That’s what I am hoping to do with Promise’s youth.
Right now, more than 300 PROMISE youth are working summer jobs. The youth that work in the community have a chance to change the perception of disabilities with their employers, coworkers, customers they may serve, but most importantly themselves. Seeing that they are contributing to society, I hope will give them the hunger to do this for the rest of their life. Working not only brings financial gain but emotion gain. A sense of self.
Two weeks before my accident I had to write a self-mission statement. Part of it stated, “I will keep in mind where there are obstacles; there is a way over them. Accepting there will be failure, without failure nothing can be learned.” I hope I can instill these words with the youth I work with.
