Disability Pride Week is an annual event used to promote visibility and mainstream awareness of the positive pride felt by people with disabilities within their community. It marks a break from traditional concepts of disabilities as shameful conditions, which were often hidden from public spaces and mainstream awareness.
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Disability Pride
Disability Pride is "a new concept", as an awareness campaign in Toronto has pointed out on their Website. The movement for disability pride has its roots in the pride awareness events of other minority communities, such as Black pride and LGBT pride. The United States' first Disability Pride Parade was held in Boston, MA in 1990. Disability pride parades have since spread to many locations across the U.S., including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Silicon Valley/Santa Clara County, and internationally, such as Norway, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. The Chicago Disability Pride Parade describes the goals in its mission statement:
To change the way people think about and define “disability”;
To break down and end the internalized shame among people with Disabilities; and
To promote the belief in society that Disability is a natural and beautiful part of human diversity in which people living with Disabilities can take pride.
One organizer of Disability Pride Week at the University of Washington expressed her desire to change society's concept of people with disabilities, moving away from the medical model of disability:
“I want to promote a different understanding of ‘disability’ beyond the medical model. I want people to realize the issue of ‘disability’ as a socially created problem,” Luetzow said. The medical model of disability is presented as a problem of the person, directly caused by trauma, disease, or other health condition, which requires sustained medical care. On the other hand, the management of the problem within the social model of disability requires social action and cultural, individual, community, and large-scale change.
Disability Pride Week events
Disability Pride Week events combine the celebration of disability culture with educational events, such as seminars on legal rights for people with disabilities, accessibility awareness, and similar topics.