Canes “N” Able Response

This presentation was truly inspiring! It was fascinating to see Lawrence perform with such ease and everything flowed very nicely.

After hearing this presentation it taught me many things. It taught me about accessibility and what accessibility actually means. It means wheelchair parking, Braille for blind people, ramps and basically to let people who have special needs still have the same experience of things like we do. Please note that people with special needs are no different from us. It’s just that they have different needs. Everyone has to accept them for who they are. Just because someone looks different doesn’t give people the right to treat them differently. I met this man names David Roche. He was born with a tumor on his face which disfigured all the features on his face. When I first saw a picture of him I thought, wow this guy is weird. Then I met David. He turned out to be one of the nicest guy’s I’ve ever meet. He presents a show about his life in comedy form. It moved me in so many different ways. David is truly amazing and taught me that you can’t go around judging people for what they look like, because they might turn out to be the most passionate, caring loving person you’ll ever meet.

The only surprise I experienced is when Lawrence took off his leg. And, how much his leg actually cost. It’s not fair to people who can’t afford to pay for prosthetic legs. Lawrence was a great performer. It also amazed me how Lawrence could stay his leg for five hours straight! This shows (once again) that people with disabilities have more abilities than not. One last thing that surprised me was where the word “handicap” comes from. I can’t even imagine who could even think of making that word!

This world has a lot of work to do. One of the big factors is making places accessible. I’ve encountered many situations of non-accessibility because of my brother Oz who has Cerebral Palsy. My family goes to Israel a lot. You might not know this but Israel isn’t the most accessible place in the world…It was so challenging taking Oz places because places weren’t accessible. Most restaurant, stores, malls and houses did not have ramps or elevators. We are lucky to live in a place like Canada where a lot of things are accessible. I think even if places are not accessible people should still make the effort to help people who have difficulty getting around. If it’s helping a blind person across the street or pushing someone in a wheelchair or explaining something to someone who has an Intellectual Disability or providing closed caption for people with hearing loss; these are all responsibilities that we have to make for people in our community and in the world.


BY ARI HAVUSHA!