Me? Disabled?

Mary wrote to me after my last blog. She affirmed the importance of highlighting the many variations of disability whenever we try to define it. She also alerted me to a World Health Organization initiative to reach consensus on how to standardise definitions of disability. It’s called the International Classification of Functioning (ICF).

The neat thing about this project is its philosophical and social framework. Notions of ‘health’ and ‘disability’ are being put into a new and proper light. It is a ‘light’ that Jean Vanier saw almost 50 years ago.

Here is the deal: Each and every one of us can and will experience decreased health. We are all vulnerable. For some of us the struggle is ongoing. For others intense vulnerability will come with old age. Yet others of us will experience a dramatic decrease in health or wholeness due to accident or disease. The point is that all of us will experience some degree of disability.

Disability is not something that only happens to a minority of humanity. Disability does not just apply to the ‘other’; it is a universal human experience.

The World Health Organization is working to shift the focus of disability “from cause to impact” which puts us all on an equal footing. Some of us are more disabled and others of us less, some of us are disabled today, others of us tomorrow, but we are all in the same boat.

As always, that good old fashioned maxim called the “golden rule” is perfect: one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

Nathan

* For more information about WHO’s ICF, click here