The Hoya Writes about the Georgetown Disability Alliance and the Work to Address the Needs of Members of the Community with Diverse Abilities
Posted in Media | Tagged Media 2019, Sylvia Önder
In this piece, The Hoya writes about the development of the Georgetown Disability Alliance, the student organization founded to draw attention to issues affecting students with disabilities on campus, which is seeking to encourage education on disability issues and advocate for on-campus accessibility and awareness of both physical and mental disabilities.
According to co-founder Anna Landre (SFS’21), Georgetown student culture creates stigmas that perpetuate the notion that mental health problems and learning disabilities conflict with one’s ability to achieve. That is why one of the goals of the club is to create an environment where students can relate to one another’s stories and experiences with disabilities, since finding a community of others with similar experiences on campus has been difficult for students with disabilities.
The Georgetown Disability Alliance adds to other steps taken on campus to bring more awareness to members of the Georgetown community living with disabilities, like the Disabilities Studies Program launched in 2017, and some courses on the area offered since 2010. In an interview with The Hoya, Sylvia Önder explained that “we have a long way to go, but we have also, over time, improved awareness of the problems by teaching a variety of Disability Studies classes here at Georgetown. I am impressed by our students’ willingness to listen and learn, and by their impulse to take action and get things done to make this a better place for us all.”