#FestABLE For Life #thisisme

I suspect there will be many of us who feel the need to write this week after the Education event of the year last weekend at National Star College. And I say education in the holistic sense it should be considered  – across all areas of life. WOW. What a day.

My brain is still buzzing, I haven’t quite digested the enormity of the feeling and it has powered me up for months to come. It was so many things rolled into one, and across the board it presented the reality of how we should live as a society. Together, inclusively, positively – supporting one another with no judgement and no segregation based upon ability or need.

After joining Twitter last year and ‘meeting’ so many amazing #SEND people online, including the man of the moment – Barney Angliss (you Sir should take a bow), who somehow sewed us all together in a diverse and intricately woven mix, one line stood out on the day repeatedly said by many.

There was a common thread – humanity. As it should be. Complete acceptance and overflowing support, positivity and passion to make change. In a world that just doesn’t make sense at times, that leaves you feeling like bits of data or finance, that crushes your soul when you have this whole other view of the way it is and can be with our children, when you battle and fight until you think you just can’t take it anymore, this day – this one whole day lit every single one of us up. With hope, passion and a commitment to each other, our children – our community. To make change, to work at it, to prove them wrong and to do it together.

I felt like we needed to form a circle and break into song, literally on several occasions with the ballad of the moment.

Because for one whole day, for all of us, we experienced the way it should be. Standing shoulder to shoulder with each other, parents, professionals, friends, family, children and young people who valued and viewed each other as total equals. And you know what – it rocked, it rocked all the way to the possible and back.

There is a sincere and real, raw power coming to #SEND and #Disability. And it isn’t entrenched in politics, meetings or negativity. It is entrenched in the people, the real authentic voice, the positive compassionate humanity and it is going to do something amazing. Every single one of us was touched in some way – use that, it’s a gift, so use it well and lets together #flipthenarrative and make the change in the world we want to see.