 Coming up on this edition of Abledon On Air, highlights from the Vermont State House Vermont Disability Day 2019. All that coming up next on Abledon On Air. Abledon On Air is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services empowering neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. Additional support for Abledon On Air is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together. Welcome to this edition of Abledon On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs concerns and achievements of the definitely able. I've always been your host, Lawrence Seiler. Our lead is off today. Thank you to our sponsors. On this exciting edition and informative edition of Abledon On Air, we look at highlights from the Vermont Disability Day at the State House 2019. What you're about to see are speeches from Monica Hutt of Dale, who's been on the show before, as well as Governor Phil Scott and others. And also, you're about to listen to a presentation from Nate Bezio, board member and treasurer of the Northeast Disabled Athletic Association. After sports and recreation is his presentation. Let's take a look at highlights from the State House. Let's take a look at this. I'm here with us this morning, and I want to thank Governor Scott for being here today and invite him up and say a few words. Thank you. I'll give this a try. See how you broke it first. Thank you. It's on the record. Well, good morning, everyone. I just want to take a moment to really welcome you to the State House. How many first time? Lewis, how are you? How many first time to the State House? First time? Anybody else first time? First time? First time? Well, great. Well, welcome. You should make sure that it's not your last time, right? Because it's really important for every voice to be heard. We're very open here. We want to hear from you. And you can go into any committee room and listen to what's going on there, as well as add your voice and see your representatives. And that's what makes Vermont so special. We're unique, we're tolerant, we're compassionate, and we want to help. So, regardless of party, we're here to represent you. So, we have some challenges in Vermont. We acknowledge that. We have a stagnant population. We're not growing as fast as I think we should. We have a lot of open jobs throughout Vermont. We don't have people to fill them. That's where you come in, as well. We want everyone that wants the work, can work, to be independent. We want them to be fulfilled. We want them to have a job. So, we're here to try and make sure that happens, because it helps all of us in the long run, as the economy plus gives you that ability to be independent. And my, just a quick story, and some of you have heard it before, my dad was a World War II vet. My dad grew up in Washington, Vermont, but was severely injured in the Evasion after D-Day Evasion, and was in a tank explosion and lost both his legs. Spent two years in Walter Reed Hospital and came back, but started a new life back in Vermont and met my mom. They met in Lake Elmore, had three boys, and we had somewhat of a normal life. He worked right over next door in the 133 State Street in the Highway Division, and he issued Highway Oversize Load Permits, because, as I said, he was a truck driver by trade. He unfortunately died when I was 11 due to those injuries. My mom was a single mom overnight with three boys, so I reflect on that a lot about what it must have been like for him, long before ADA, and some of the issues that he faced trying to get into different places. But as well, my mom, who all of a sudden was a single parent of three really, you know, we were very active kids, so put a lot of pressure on her. But again, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you again for coming. My administration is here to help. My first day in office, I issued this executive order from my cabinet, my administration, and it was three very simple principles. To grow the economy, make Vermont more affordable, and protect the most vulnerable. And we look at every single issue that we take up, and we try to come out, and we ask ourselves, does it accomplish at least one out of the three, hopefully two out of the three, or three out of the three. And I think that we have a lot of common interests here, and it really is important that you add your voice and be active, because we're here to serve you. So again, thank you for coming in. Nice to see you again, Louis. And we'll see you on the road this summer. Yeah. All right. Again, thank you very much for being here. Kevin doesn't have the honor of being the last speaker today, actually. But I would like, in addition to the work that we do here in the legislature today, the other side of the work that we need to do is within the administration, and we're so lucky to have Commissioner Hutt here with us from the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. I'd like to invite her up to say a few words. If you'd like. So in all honesty, like it was in the hallway where I told her that I'd like her to come up. Oh, see, yeah, my sarcasm. You don't need to say anything. We'd love to hear from you. No, thank you so much. I am so glad that this room filled up the way that it did. I was a little bit panicked when I first sat down, and I'm so delighted that people got here regardless of the weather. You know, no matter how we approach these issues, there will always be differences of opinion. There will always be kind of different ways to look at things. But the reality is that the work that we do in Vermont on behalf of individuals with disabilities and in partnership with individuals with disabilities is so important. And I love this day because I love that everybody stands here and blocks the hallways and makes themselves really visible and present and loud. And that's what we really need to do because ultimately that's how we get people to pay attention. And Vermont is unique because you can walk into any office or any door, into any committee room and make sure that you say what you want to say. And let's not ever lose that opportunity. Let's not ever walk away from that because it's really important. I'm so glad that the governor was here. I'm so glad that he recognizes that individuals with disabilities are part of the natural resource that we have here in Vermont. I'm headed over to the Capitol Plaza to talk with some employers who really honor and embrace the spirit of the ADA and their hiring practices. We need to make that happen more. I'm so glad that Mary was able to talk a little bit in depth about the issues facing Vermonters who are deaf and hard of hearing and deafblind. We have so much work to do, but I love this room and I love this day and I love this energy. So thank you very much, Sarah for letting me speak and I'm so glad we're all here. If not, just let me know if I'm speaking loud enough. I've always been told I am loud about this voice so hopefully that'll be my advantage today. How could you mean? I won't need a microphone. We are passing handouts for the slides so people can look at them. We have a large version for anybody who has any visual disabilities, but hopefully you can follow along and I apologize if the print is small. So on to the presentation. Thank you all for coming. My name is Nathan Mosayo. Some of you might know me from working with the Vermont Center for Independent Living in the Burlington office. But one thing I am also doing in my spare time is I am a board member for the Northeast Disabled Athletic Association. And that is one of the many adaptive sports organizations in Vermont for people with disabilities. And so today what I'd like to do is talk to you a little bit about adaptive sports, how they came to be, how they came to be created and the benefits for them. And so I am going to take you through a slideshow. I'll show you a little bit about adaptive sports or some of the adaptive sports offered. And hopefully if I have any time afterwards we will be able to answer some questions. So there's some pictures of some cool activities people are participating in, full disclosure. I borrowed some of these pictures of local people so you might see people you know and if you are any of the people in the pictures don't sue me. I apologize for taking it without your permission. So adaptive sports and recreation. This right here is actually if you look at a picture this is a MDA sailboat where we have a person with a disability sailing. And as you can see he is able to sail using a slip and buff where he can steer the boat using his breath. So not only am I a board member I am also a participant in disabled athletics. These are three sports that I particularly like to participate in. Tower Soccer is one of the sports I play which is basically soccer where you've adapted your chair, put a guard on the front. I do adaptive sailing and that's me sailing with one of my co-workers and adaptive kayaking. So we do adaptive kayaking program where people with physical disabilities are able to kayak just like everyone else. Do you like kayaking? Yep, yep. And the one thing I should know is that these are not the only sports that I have tried and activities I have tried. I have tried several. Some of them I like. Some of them I didn't like. You know, so you might try some activities that you're not going to like but the good thing is that you tried and not to give up just because you found an activity you may not be too crazy about. So what is adaptive sports and recreation? And I want to put the recreation part in there because when I talk about adaptive sports I'm not just talking about competitive sports where you're wasting people and you're on a team and you're competing. I'm also talking about recreation which is just getting out and doing activities, having fun, relaxing. Just finding something where you're able to do an activity where you're enjoying yourself. So what is adaptive sports and recreation? Well, it's according to a slide here a phenomenon, really, in a movement where people with disabilities whether it be physical, cognitive, intellectual are being able to participate in sports that everybody else who does not have a disability can by adapting the equipment and modifying the rules. And when I really say it's a phenomenon in movement, I mean it in the sense that it's really pretty recent when you think about people with disabilities have been around since the age of God really adaptive sports has really started probably started off since World War II but really didn't really pick it up until after the independent living movement in the 60s and 70s and really not until the American with Disabilities Act. So this right here is another picture of a sled hockey team in the Central Vermont Pioneers and they are able to play sled hockey and people with mobility disabilities participate in that. So again, recovering the sport through adapting and universal design which means being able to design a sport so everybody in all abilities can participate in people with all kinds of abilities are able to participate in sporting events or recreational activities. And you see this example all the kind and what you're finding is that just because people have a disability doesn't mean they can excel if they work really hard in certain sports and recreational activities. This picture in particular as a woman who is a arm amputee and she was actually a participant in the Olympics. Not the Paralympics anything but she participated in the Olympic games. So she was able to show that despite her disability she can participate in physical sports and recreation just like everybody else. In other words, she can do almost anything that the average can do. She can do something like the average can do. Yep. Exactly. So just to give you a little history and I'm going to go to this point by point of adaptive sports but again really if you look at the history the big movement for recreation kind of started after the Civil War where you had about 30,000 soldiers who had amputations and so you had a big wave of people with disabilities coming through and they were looking for certain treatments. They were trying to provide recreational activities that really did not start until much later. So you see during the history of the games there are also a lot of events for people with physical disabilities. The one thing I do want to highlight is in 1948 the in London which is really the birthplace of the Paralympics and basically what happens is you have some World War II veterans saying they wanted to participate in activities and in sporting activities and so I believe the first event for that was initially 12 or 16 people. Today the Paralympics has Winter and Summer Olympics and there's usually about 16 to 1800 participants. So again it's really really grown over the years for people with disabilities. Evidence. There is growing and theoretical evidence that participating in adaptive sports and recreation not only benefit people with disabilities physically in terms of making them stronger and their balance but also benefits people with disabilities emotionally. Participating in activities helps people with disabilities gain self-confidence. Helps their self-determination and a lot of this I've worked with a lot of people with disabilities who have done adaptive sports and I'm feeling like well if I could do a disabled sport, if I can kayak why can't I do other things? I can be able to apply for a job or I might be able to go to school. So there's a lot of evidence when the evidence first came out in the Amethystical Therapy that basically looked at the physical benefits of adaptive sports. One of the really bad is that emotionally adaptive sports really helps people gain confidence to do other things. It makes them feel better about themselves because you are doing things that everybody else can do. You are participating in the same activities that able-bodied and non-disabled people can do. When he came out of the war he had to learn all over again from time. Yeah, yeah. Well, why? So again, why does participating in adaptive sports do that and this is just a list of some things that we have when I do that. It's about inclusion. Again, this goes to whole meaning of the independent living movement. It's about inclusion. Being included in what all people can do. Many times in adaptive sports, people with disabilities can do and participate in activities. They're able-bodied and non-disabled friends can do. I showed you kayaking. You can go kayaking with friends. You can go sailing with friends. You can play sports and have people come watch you play sports. Not you just have to walk. It's about competition. Now for some people it's about competition. Some people like competing. Some people don't but some people are getting out there competing and trying your best. Just jumping down about being physical fitness. It's about being physical. Feeling for yourself. Even though you might not be able to move very much or do certain things through adaptations of adaptive sports and recreations, you can achieve things. You can do things. You can try your best. I'm going to ask for some questions after the presentation so we can just wait. Come on. Thank you. I know just for Blake even though we're driving motorized wheelchairs, the first time I did it I was sweating. I didn't have the concentration of playing it and just keeping your balance. So there's physical and mental benefits to it. I do want to talk about the last one to the second last thing. It's about inspiration. Now, I know inspiration is a word that we don't want very often within people with disabilities. I'm not talking about inspiring other people. You might be inspiring. I'm talking about inspiring yourself. So by participating in X disabled athletics you can inspire yourself and say hey, I can do this. I can do better things. There's more I can do. So it's really about helping you gain confidence and gaining ability to do things. Now these are some quotes and I don't want to read them all but I'll just read a few of them from people who have participated in some disabled sports. I have a couple of favorites. Adaptive sports helped me shape me into the person I am today. As a new wheelchair user, I was given the confidence to know that if I wanted to do it, it could somehow be done. This third quote I'm actually going to do a name drop. It's from a team made of mine, Zach Small. So where am I going? From the local area. Until power soccer came along, I never knew what it was like to compete in development of sports. I love watching sports but I would always be on the sideline of leadership. Now I am part of a team competing with other people who have shared the same experience as I am. I was just named the captain of the team and my friends now come to watch me play. One thing that Zach did that I thought was very cool was when he was interviewing for his first job they asked him to give an example of leadership and part of a team and he talked about being part of power soccer. So he was able to use that to help him in the real world. And then this last quote is my favorite quote. It's a long one but I think it kind of sums up. I fell in love with sled hockey the first time I grabbed two sled sticks and was pushed out onto the ice. And a lot of times people are reluctant and they literally have to be pushed out onto the ice because it can be intimidating to try it. But as long as you want to try it you might like it, you might love it but you might not like it. I fell a lot but I was determined by the challenge. Since I started my physical condition guys significantly improved my sign has vanished I have made lifelong friends with others in similar disabilities I can't express how grateful I am to the people who got me started in this sport. Those who supported me those who kept me involved and those who worked with me I am not the person I was two years ago and even if I had to stop playing tomorrow the experience we had and excitement I've experienced knowing I am a true athlete will be with me for the rest of my life. To be an athlete to be a state of mind to be able to compete and go over there so you don't have to excel on the sport you don't have to be the best to be an athlete there are other people that you can participate also one thing I'll do is participating at Disabled Athletics a lot of people meet people other people with disabilities who have common history common experience and might be able to share advice on what they've been through they're able to share these experiences with their friends who aren't disabled so really the building of community and the growing in confidence it's not about kidding it's about the IEL movement when people are participating at Disabled Athletics we really don't want to be part of a special story what you want to do is you want to compete you want to be about everybody else you want to be doing the same things that non-disabled people are doing and so it's not about kidding as anybody seen the movie Murder Ball anybody called the movie Murder Ball about the one with me there's a quote in that the goal is to be part of the sports page not part of the living section so the goal in terms of leveling the playing field amongst people with disabilities is so that adaptive sports is viewed on the same lines as regular sports so people aren't going to be like oh look at this inspirational person participating in Power Soccer or CanCycle the picture that you're seeing is actually an event my Power Soccer team holds every year at Carrington at UVM it's a Power Soccer competition we play teams from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Boston and I can tell you that when we play it we're not looking to inspire people we're looking to beat the other people we're looking to win so we're not looking to be nice it's about fun and getting out there and doing things so it's not about that it's about equal treatment not special treatment so again, going back to the America with Disabilities Act it was passed so that people with disabilities have equal access to certain activities so really when the Act was first passed in 1991 it really didn't include a lot of modifications for things like gyms and pools and stuff but then when it was revised it didn't include a lot of adaptations so nowadays a lot of sport clubs a lot of places that offer facilities to the general public have to make those available to people with disabilities so what you're saying is more pools with lifts with people with disabilities to go swimming gym equipment available to people with physical disabilities you now have activities like climbing walls where people with physical disabilities or any disabilities can participate they're about adaptive skiing and sport about 10 years ago there might have been 1 maybe 2 mountains offering adaptive downhill skiing nowadays pretty much every downhill mountain has some kind of adaptive skiing program a lot of us have to do with the ADA provide equal access for people with disabilities so if you're thinking about participating in something don't be shy don't think you're asking for something special you're asking for equal treatment you're asking for equal access so now I'm going to show you a bunch of sports and how it's done and a lot of sports are just taking the equipment and modifying it so that people with disabilities can participate again so this is a couple of northeast disabled athletic things this is a kayak that I showed on the pictures you have outriggers on the sides for people with balance issues and then you have the oars on the pivot so that people can use the oars despite their strength the kayak is just a regular kayak it's just something that's been modified some people are transferred into it using a Hoyer lift and the great thing about that is that kayak can be changed to anybody's abilities to be adjusted that corner is a sailboat it's called a Martin 16 it's specifically made for people with physical disabilities to get in this particular picture shows it has a little joystick if you look at the guy with his right hand he's actually controlling it and he has a sipping pump it's a two person thing so you always have a person sailing in the back they've had many blind sailors participate but the person in the back giving directions go left, go right or a starboard port if you want to get technical so it's very easily adaptable so I'm sorry I don't want to run into your ankles so basically where there's a will we can figure things out we can figure out, we can adapt the equipment we can make different sports available to people with disabilities and I am amazed that it seems like every month I hear somebody doing something different adapt this sport where I've heard it before wow that's very original athletes that are born with the sailing conditions or who acquire through accidents and conditions we're too often left on the sidelines we're too often left sitting on the sides watching and wanting to participate but the technology is around and the ability is around for people with disabilities to be participants and through assistive devices prosthetics with amputees this is a road bike that is after skiing and sport offers for biking for people with disabilities assistive devices level the playing field whether you want to be on the ice maybe skating with somebody doing downhill skiing participating in tennis whether playing basketball lacrosse that's what I just learned about or on the water since skiing is a program offered by the NDA where people can go water skiing on the rink or on the trail we have sled hockey and the county or cross country skiing in the pool or on the track so they have care olympics where people can participate in athletics and their swimming programs all throughout Vermont that's huge just one question with if we can wait until after the presentation thank you so on the slopes or on the court one of these pictures is a blinds game that Vermont Adaptivast offers and wheelchair tennis on the range you have biathlon on the path the middle picture is important it's just the person in the wheelchair going on a bike path with their family going back to the recreation park maybe that for you is just going out and being active and just going for a walk or a stroll new bike paths are being important to be out there climbing wall or participating in that on a reservoir river kayaking you have some more extreme sports somebody in a wheelchair doing parkour or whatever it's called high in the mountains or if you want to get really crazy jumping off a bridge that is not a sport I will participate the point is that sports are for everybody and everybody should be able to participate in these sports just a really brief rundown the NDAA is one of the organizations we are a private non-profit athletic organization we offer people with physical disabilities we are entirely volunteer and we offer sporting activities to about 450 people around the state with disabilities what we offer while winter sports what we offer is sled hockey biathlon power soccer wheelchair basketball during the summer we offer adaptive sailing kayaking, canoeing, water skiing in cycling bike and ball and wheelchair tennis to get some contact information we have the slides scanned out if people want to access them that is some slides for the NDAA and some other organizations for modern adaptive skiing sport they are very active they do a lot of outdoor activities skiing, biking, water sports they are more seen in the central and southern Vermont Special Olympics of Vermont is another organization the Central Vermont Pioneers are a sled hockey team that are located in the Montpellier area and still adaptive sports are another one and I am sure there are a lot more organizations that offer activities in Vermont but these are just a few so that's what I have I don't know what we are doing in terms of time what time is it? 11.17 11.17 11.15 11.17 oh ok so we do have some time oh I burned that, so fast yeah yeah well there are programs that active skiing does offer some biking programs for that and there are all kinds of different bikes for camping cycles sitting cycles Northeast disabled athletic associations off average biking a lot of that is rentals but all kinds are clinics so my recommendation with other slides would be to reach out to one of those excuse me, what's the difference between your organization and adaptive sports program? that's a good question what's the difference between the Northeast disabled athletic association and the monadaptive skis work because we do a lot of times get mistaken to be the same organization there are two separate organizations the Northeast disabled athletic association we mainly deal with people with physical disabilities we are volunteer organizations so we don't have a lot of people who specialize in behavioral or cognitive disabilities that's not to say we don't offer athletic activities to people with developmental or cognitive disabilities but there are just certain things that we might not be able to provide we do team sports we do power soccer we do sled hockey we do adaptive sailings we do a lot of competition our rules are that people playing this sport need to be able to understand the rules and concepts of those and we do a lot of one-on-one work with people so maybe somebody wants to learn to sail we take that person out sailing we will help them learn how to sail or they want to learn how to kayak we take that person out sailing adaptive skiing sport we specialize a lot more in outdoor activities and we work a lot more with developmental people with developmental disabilities we are skiing and we do have biking and things like that we also do a lot of group outings with schools and organizations with individuals thank you thank you thank you for joining us on this informative edition of Ableton on Air from the State House's Vermont Disability Day 2019 we would like to thank our sponsors Arlene is off today I'm Lauren Seiler see you next time on the next informative edition of Ableton on Air see you next time Ableton on Air is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services empowering neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community additional support for Ableton on Air is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services where hope and support come together