Fighting Chance is extremely excited to publish the first blog
by Maria Makhoul, our in-house blog writer. Maria has cerebral palsy and has
been working with us for the last four months. Maria will be writing regular
blogs about her experiences as a young person with disabilities, to give us all
an insight into her experiences, and the challenges she faces as a person with
a disability.
My name is Maria
Makhoul. I’m a freelance writer, student and aspiring journalist and
interviewer. I have mild cerebral palsy.
From now on I will be
writing this blog for Fighting Chance, and of course, I would greatly welcome
any comments and contributions from others who read this blog.
Growing up, I kept my
own journals from age eight to 16 and have always loved writing. As for
interviewing, I’m quite a “social butterfly” and a confident conversationalist,
and I’m currently doing a journalistic creative writing course to help me
improve my writing skills for journalism.
“Employment” means
different things to different people. To many, it’s simply about getting any
sort of job that pays enough money to cover the bills and day-to-day living
costs. But to me, it has to be something that you love to do and are passionate
about, and that – ideally – is meaningful, fulfilling and rewarding all at the
same time.
So I’m thrilled to be
working with Fighting Chance and the O’Reilly family, as both Laura and Jordan
O’Reilly are so driven to help improve the lives of people with disabilities.
At the moment - as many of us with disabilities know only too well - it is very
difficult, if not impossible, to get a job because of discriminatory attitudes
and stupid prejudice. Society needs to give people with disabilities a
chance!
For myself, my dream
is to get a job as a journalist in a mainstream newsroom, but I’ve learnt that
I don’t work all that well under pressure, because I like to do things at my
own pace. So, to start with at least, I need a work environment where I can
learn and develop my writing skills and confidence, at my own pace. And
Fighting Chance is giving me that opportunity, by employing me to help manage,
publicise and promote its “Kairos Project”, which is basically about developing
innovative, computer-based work opportunities for people who have physical disabilities,
but who are bright, smart and ambitious – like me!
Many
“ordinary/normal” people look at people with physical disabilities and just
automatically assume they are cognitively impaired as well. That’s certainly
the case when most “ordinary people” encounter a person with a physical
disability who can’t speak, or whose speech is severely impaired. But spend
just a few minutes with a person with physical disabilities, no matter how
severe, and you realise there is a smart, bright person inside that disabled
body.
Personally, I see
myself as a strong, assertive, independent woman who knows what she wants and
isn’t afraid to fight for it if necessary.
Which, for anyone
with a disability, too often it is.
