Self-Advocacy Association of NYS
Showing the People, Not the Disability

“The first time I used the video camera I felt empowered,” says  Janice Bartley. “I felt like I could make a difference.”

Bartley is a member of the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State, an organization run by and for people with developmental disabilities.  She shared her thoughts and those of other self advocates on the organization’s growing use of video production during a recent presentation at this year’s Grass Roots Media Conference.

“I could use this tool to make people really listen,” Bartley continued. “I could help make films that capture the passion struggles and stories of people with disabilities   and get our communities to listen in a whole new way.  By making these documentaries  we are helping people both now and in the future really understand the lives of people with disabilities.”

Like the Coalition for Institutionalized Aged and Disabled (CIAD), the Self-Advocacy Association  has been working with media for about four years. And, like CIAD, it has been able to do so in large part through the assistance of Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Community Media Department which has provided it with a series of training and production grants.

“Using media for the self-advocacy movement is fantastic,” says Alexandra Haselbeck, who joined the association in 2006 as Coordinator for the New York City Region. “It is a medium where you so often do not see people with developmental disabilities.”

The Self-Advocacy Association began with a series of short PSAs (Public Service Announcements) focusing on typical attitudes and misconceptions about people with disabilities.

The association then went on to produce longer videos dealing with various issues.  The first addressed voting and questions of access for individuals with disabilities.  The second examined the limited ability of people with disabilities to effectively access the transportation system.  “Access-A-Ride is a service that touts itself as effective for people with disabilities but is really very limited,” says Haselbeck. “You have to book it 24 hours in advance and can’t be spontaneous.”  One portion of the video records a phone call in which an Access-A-Ride dispatcher argues that there is no such address as Washington Square South, interspersed with shots of the street sign. 

The Self Advocacy Association’s third video dealt with issues of relationships. “It is assumed that people with disabilities don’t have real lives, don’t get out, don’t date,” says Haselbeck. 

“They have produced some really great quality programs,” says Betty Yu, Director of MNN’s Community Media Department. 

Coming soon, will be “A Day in the Life” which will track the lives of five very different individuals with disabilities.  The video will tell the stories of Bartley, a single African American woman who lives alone; Harvey, a middle-aged Jewish man with an adopted daughter who also has a disability; a young man who, despite being non-verbal, communicates through facilitated communication and is in college; an African American Deacon who lives alone; and a single Latina woman who lives with a roomate in Brooklyn.  The point, explains Haselbeck, is that “it is less their disabilities that make them similar or different than their individual life circumstances.”  

“We want to be seen as people, not as a disability,” says Bartley.

As you would expect from the Self Advocacy Association, each of the videos is being produced by the self-advocates themselves.  

“Audio and video media is terrific,” says Steve Holmes, the association’s Executive Director.  “It allows you to tell a person’s story much better than words can ever tell it.” 

Holmes is hoping to expand the association’s use of video as it upgrades its website.  “Instead of posting policy papers, we have thought about having our leaders discuss it,” he says.  Another plan as part of the Association’s effort to win a name change at OMRDD is to have self-advocates record short clips telling why they hate the term mentally-retarded. “We think it is very powerful,” he says.