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Helen Keller: An Influential and Touching Life
American novelist Helen Keller dedicated her life to teaching, influencing and motivating others, and she went on to become the most original writer of her era
Helen Keller was an amazing writer and a gifted woman. She communicated with all types of individuals using a straightforward manner. She wrote to uplift readers and support the aspirations of persons with disabilities. She used a variety of dictions, syntactic constructions, and imagery patterns in her writing to illustrate the events of her life. Keller wrote straightforwardly with excellent language and descriptions.
Hellen was born on 27 June 1880 in Alabama. She was born as a fully-abled child and learned to walk. When she was 19 months Helen caught a fever which was known as “acute congestion of the stomach and brain”, it caused he losing her sight and hearing ability.
The loss of sight and listening ability caused her trauma, which resulted in her being violent and unruly. In her biography, she says, “I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot it had ever been different until she came- my teacher”. The discovery of herself and her passion to learn new things invoked a positive attitude toward life. **
Anne Sullivan was a remarkable change in Helen’s life. Anne was a 20-year-old blind teacher that Helen met. Teaching Helen to obey and to love was in Anne’s opinion, the key to winning Helen over. She recognized the necessity of enforcing discipline while preserving her little spirit.
Anne started Helen’s lesson by writing or signing into her hand. To give Helen, Anne had carried a doll that the kids at Perkins had made for her. She intended to teach the youngster to associate items with letters by writing “d-o-l-l” into her hand.
Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain, two titans of American culture, were struck by Helen’s outstanding aptitude and her teacher’s special talents.
Because of how closely Helen and Anne were connected, Helen’s thoughts were accused by people as not her own. Helen was charged with plagiarism when she was just 11 years old. Both Bell and Twain, who were close friends of Helen and Anne, defended both the student and teacher while making fun of their critics.
© AP
Helen had a strong desire to attend college at a very young age. She enrolled in the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in 1898 to get ready for Radcliffe College. She enrolled at Radcliffe in the fall of 1900 and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in 1904.
The Helen Keller Archives has more than 475 speeches and writings she wrote, covering subjects like atomic energy, birth control, preventing blindness, and faith. Helen wrote her papers using a braille typewriter before having them transcribed on a conventional typewriter.
During her service for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), Helen’s beliefs found their purest and most enduring expression. Helen began working with AFB in 1924 and remained an employee for more than 40 years.
She made the most of the opportunities the foundation gave her to campaign on a global scale for the concerns of those who were blind or partially sighted. Her trips across the country led to the establishment of state commissions for the blind, the construction of rehabilitation facilities, and the opening of educational opportunities for people who are blind or visually impaired.
She travelled to 35 nations on five continents throughout seven voyages between 1946 and 1957. She had meetings with world leaders like Golda Meir, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Winston Churchill.
Helen Keller spent her entire life serving people. She was a well-known author, public speaker, and campaigner with a tenacious personality. For centuries to come, her extraordinary life of eighty-seven years will always be honoured. She is an inspiration to many people with disabilities and others that “If there is a will, there is a way”.
Listen to Dis’ are the inclusivity-focused, disability-led arts organisation championing disability culture through art and performance
Listen to Dis’ is a registered non-profit community arts organisation that champions disability culture through the medium of inclusive art and performance. Their work manifests in many forms including workshops, artist series and theatrical touring, and everything has an underlying message to support and empower the global disabled community.
Here we highlight how Listen to Dis’ is bringing this message to life:
Listen to Dis’ VOICE
Listen to Dis’ VOICE is a weekly open-access program where artists join forces to learn, create, explore, and connect. The focus topic changes each week yet is always in keeping with the Listen to Dis’ core message of advocating for the disabled community. Through this profound program, Listen to Dis’ has created some truly important work surrounding ableist ways disabled bodies and minds are viewed.
Listen to Dis
The Other Ordinary
The Other Ordinary is Listen to Dis’ touring crip theatre company. Launched out of a class at the University of Regina named Devising Inclusive Theatre, and directed by Listen to Dis’ founder and artistic director Traci Foster. Dubbed TOO, it fosters the talents of emerging professional artists that produce tour shows with a focus on how it feels to live and work as disabled people.
Take their first show, ‘Neither Heroes nor Ordinary People,’ as a prime example, which uncovers the realities of living with disabilities through music, monologue, dance, beatbox, and singing. Their second show, Mine to Have, is about sexuality, sensuality, disability, and
the political right to live in one’s body.
Listen to Dis
Visiting Artist Series
LTD’s visiting artist series connects disabled artists with the wider arts ecology by inviting artists, both disabled and not, to host workshops that explore disability art. Inviting artists from outside the LTD’s group enables LTD’s network to expand but also ignites deeper learning on both parts of the essence of disability culture and mindset.
LTD’s is amplifying the voices of the disabled community through a variety of mediums that all celebrate art, performance and culture. Follow their journey on their Instagram here.
Through facilitated dialogue and inclusive art practice and performance, we weave new realities for our members and for the broader community – shifting the way people perceive disability and creating an understanding of and appreciation for crip art, mad art, and disability culture.
‘Using what we know about disability to change how museums work for everyone’ is the tagline for The Sensational Museum
Led by Professor Hannah Thompson from Royal Holloway, University of London, The Sensational Museum is a £1 million pound-funded project by the Arts and Humanities Research Council whose goal is to alter current access methods and introduce a deeper sense of inclusivity within the museum sector in the UK.
Thompson is joined by a plethora of professionals on this project who unite on the idea that disability needs need to be put at the centre of all museums’ strategies going forward. There is Social Design specialist Anne Chick from the University of Lincoln; Psychologist Alison Eardley from the University of Westminster; and Museum Studies expert Ross Parry from the University of Leicester. They will work together between April 2023 and July 2025 to really transform the way disabled and non-disabled people interact with the art and each other in museums in the future.
Collaborating with museum staff as well as disabled and non-disabled visitors, the more-than-equipped team will be looking into two core areas: new ways of accessing museum collections and cataloguing objects in a more inclusive way. The key idea is to acknowledge and put into practice the fact that the needs of diverse visitors are all unique and not everyone absorbs art in the same way. Sector organisations include VocalEyes, an initiative that works towards inclusion for the visually impaired and blind in the arts and heritage sector, Curating for Change which helps create career paths for the disabled community, and the Museums Association, a membership organisation that campaigns for socially engaged museums. They will all be on hand to offer acute advice and inspiration as to how this project can create innovative change within museums across the country.
“Many people want or need to access and process information in ways that are not only – or not entirely – visual. But museums are very sight-dependent places. Let’s imagine a museum experience that plays to whichever senses work best for you. The project aims to give all visitors inclusive, engaging, enjoyable and memorable experiences,” Professor Hannah Thompson.
Visit The Sensational Museum website to stay up-to-date with this project and how it’s developing. It has the capacity to create real social justice and impact the disabled community and how they will be able to engage with art in a more inclusive way in the future.
Marks and Spencer, Tubie Kids and Seenin are just a few brands investing in adaptive kidswear
Both big brands like M&S and Etsy as well as more emerging companies like Seenin and Tubie Kids are innovating within the adaptive kidswear market. Whether clothes, accessories or shoes, companies are re-designing everyday items to suit multiple disability needs. Blending fashion with function, here we highlight how each company is approaching this movement.
Special Kids Company
The Special Kids Company was founded by Sasha Radwan, who spent time in the Middle East, only to see first-hand how children with special needs were hidden from society’s view there. This inspired her to launch her company, which stocks multiple brands of adaptive wear for kids. Featured on her online store are Scratch Sleeves dungarees, specially designed adaptive clothing for children with autism, eczema and post-surgical healing. And there are wheelchair accessories by brands including Bundle Bean and My Buggy Buddy. Think organisers, cup holders and those all-important rain covers.
© Seenin
Seenin
Founded by Lucy Carr-Seaman, whose daughter, Hester, was born with a rare agenesis of the corpus callosum named Aicardi syndrome, Seenin is the answer to Lucy’s struggle to find exactly what she needed to make Hester and her life more comfortable. Seenin stocks everything from aprons and bibs to seamless socks and weighted blankets. There’s also a sweet kerchief range that can be designed by the shopper. The style fabric, colour and print can is all bespoke.
Tubie Kids
Tubie Kids focuses on adaptive clothing and accessories for tube-fed children. This innovative company provides beautifully designed, colourful, tube-friendly yet functional clothing that gives children the full dignity and sensory comfort they need and deserve. Their Tubie Kids® 2in1 Combo Tops are especially brilliant, as they are an everyday staple that has flat seams, no label tags, and a discreet opening for abdominal access.
Marks & Spencer
Retail giant M&S also offers what they’ve called a ‘Kids Easy Dressing,’ range. This collection includes hip dysplasia clothes, feeding tube clothing and zip-up bodysuits. They have rethought where poppers need to be placed as well as introduced super-soft materials to stimulate comfort. Sizes start from newborn and go up to 16 years. From pretty patterns to bold colours, as well as useful multi-packs, there is a lot to admire here.
© ASDA
ASDA
ASDA’s ‘Easy On Easy Wear’ clothing is designed to support kids in working towards independent dressing via items like pull-on school trousers and ‘Easy On’ 2-in-1 school pinafores where the shirt is attached to the skirt. They have also done their research on sensory-kind fabrics and offer a range of items from sweatshirts to polo shirts that help comfort kids throughout their day.
Etsy
E-commerce company Etsy hosts an abundance of independent brands and designers that have created adaptive clothing and accessories from first-hand experience. From tube feeding vests for 1-14-year-old boys and girls to adaptive trousers with side zippers and pyjamas with a back zipper, there is a lot on offer that will hopefully make the lives of parents and children living with disability or illness a touch more comfortable.
Listen to Dis’: Disability-Led Arts Organisation
The Sensational Museum
Adaptive Kidswear: Get to Know What’s Available Online
Finding Love Online With a Disability
Rich Davenport: Creativity and Performing With ME
