Tag: Community Organisation

  • Shabang! ….Live Love Laugh Learn

    Shabang ThumbnailShabang! is all about raising awareness, promoting inclusion and acceptance, and celebrating difference.

    To this end we build networks of families with children with additional needs, bringing them together under the supportive umbrella of our arts  based projects – life enhancing and confidence building; and hopefully giving everyone a great time.

    As winners of the National Diversity Award Community Organisation for Disability it looks like we are making progress, in our Shabang! bubble at least!

    However, at the heart of what we get up to at Shabang!, it can feel like being in a strong magnetic field with forces pulling one way and then another.

    Whilst we celebrate difference, enjoying our little square pegs, trumpeting their unique qualities and giving space to our children to be themselves, we are also wishing the world would see them as just kids. See the child before you see their difference, lose the label, don’t judge a book by its cover, all men are equal etc.

    National Diversity AwardsLet’s look at the family model. When a baby is born with Down Syndrome for example, the family  will go through a phase of re adjustment  i.e. “this wasn’t the baby we were expecting but let’s get on with it”. A phase which can vary from a few fleeting moments to weeks, months or years.

    Nevertheless in most cases, acceptance eventually comes with love. The family love the child, see them as their own person and the extra chromosome no longer dominates how the child is included in the family.

    In Shabang world we aim for the same sort of acceptance – where all families value each other’s children equally. We would like to think that we have created a place where acceptance and love is the key to everything. The real trick however, is how we roll out this model into the wider world. 

    So how then do we help the world to love, celebrate, include and genuinely accept those with difference?

    Equality laws go a long way but changing hearts is the real trick.

    To be honest, we think people with an intellectual disability are too often regarded as somehow “less important”. They are seen as not having as much to give to society. There is an implication that people who are cognitively different are emotionally different too. That they don’t count in the same way. Could it be, we think that somehow they carry a lower price tag or are of less worth and consequently less human than the rest?

    Are you less of a human being because your brain works differently, or slower than your typically developing peers? In the end it has to come down to a belief system wherein we are all regarded as equal. We all have an equal right to be here.

    Let’s not forget that 90% of pregnancies in Europe with a diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome are terminated. We have a huge fear factor to work some magic on here too.

    So back to our magnetic field. How do we achieve this? Well at Shabang! we chisel away at the edges. Apart from helping families of children with additional needs feel proud, confident and proactive we also look for other ways to wave our flag at the world.

    We create beautiful calendars with models with additional needs – in the hope that the more walls they hang from, the more our children will be seen as “everyday”. 

    We post short films on YouTube promoting understanding so that the most common myths are challenged.

    National Diversity AwardsWe make children’s DVDs starring actors with additional needs – in the hope that the more exposure our children have in the media the more familiar they become. How we long for TV and film to embrace intellectual disability in the same way, then we really would be getting somewhere n.b. A Shabang! series on CBBC would be great, yes please!

    Once we reduce the fear, achieve familiarity and improve acceptance then we must work on inclusion, integration and equality. Equality doesn’t just mean “same”. Equality involves accepting, celebrating and embracing our differences.

    At Shabang! we say “Live, Love, Laugh, Learn” 

    We know we are only just starting to scratch the surface , but believe us – we will keep scratching! 

    If you would like to find out more or buy a Shabang calendar follow this link:

    https://www.shabang.org.uk/product.php?id=63

  • Conquering Intolerance Through Peace

    Muslim Youth Association

    There is a breeze blowing in parts of the world today. In some areas it is gentle, a serene zephyr drifting in the peaceful azure skyline. In other places it blows fiercely, knocking people off their feet, causing houses to be demolished and lives ruined. In such areas of our planet this breeze has become a tempest, causing misery to innocent souls, a whirlwind creating destruction. It is no longer simply an insignificant breeze but has transformed into a devastating storm.

    This is the storm of intolerance.

    Its gales are far-reaching, and its flames devour individuals and groups who are perceived different, those who’s appearances, or beliefs, or cultures are not in line with those who are more powerful. This storm aims to destroy diversity, to suppress that which makes societies flourish, to quell our differences rather than to celebrate them.

    It is through a variety of means that people today seek to create division and disharmony, but the most distressing for me as an Ahmadi Muslim, is when people use religion as means of sowing the seeds of hatred, particularly when it is Islam, a word literally meaning peace, which is the faith that is hijacked in this manner. Groups such as ISIS today not only discriminate, but also murder with relish those whom they decide, all the while pretending to be the custodians of religion. Such barbaric atrocities are not new to our world; rather these flames of division and discrimination have plagued our planet for as long as Man has ruled over it.

    Thus as sectarian conflicts and brutal horrors plague the Muslim world today, the picture painted of Islam, and indeed religion as a whole, is not a pretty one. The truth however of what all faiths really teach, is quite different.  It was the Buddha who said that he who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings. It was Jesus who urged his followers to pray for those who persecute you. It was the Prophet Muhammad who said that a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white – except by piety and good action. On a personal level, it is because of my faith, and not in spite of it, that I follow the motto ‘Love for all, hatred for none,’ as I believe, as the Quran states, that we have all been created with diverse looks and beliefs and characters not for the purposes of hating each other, but so that each of us can utilise the gifts of our diversity to build a more cohesive and just society for us all.

    As a tenant of my faith, I pledge each year to always remain loyal to my country, the United Kingdom, a place in which the light and sound of diversity reverberates with beauty and with colour and with life. I live each day with friends and companions from all walks of life, united despite our differences, bound together by the thread that connects us all – the thread of humanity. I often pray that in the near future, the entire globe can feel a sense of unity despite our diversity, and that I may soon see the day that the storm of intolerance in our world is replaced by the shining light of peace.