AFI

For the past week we have been reading a play called “The Boys Next Door”. The play is about the lives of four mentally disabled men living under adult supervision. Now, I have a cousin who is down syndrome who I have interacted with many many times, and I am good friends with AJ Trueblood here on campus who I believe is also down syndrome. I talk to AJ at some point just about every day, sometimes he follows me to my classes, shows up at my door at 1am, and writes on my fb telling me to call him. So I felt like I had a pretty good visual in my head about how the guys in this play were behaving, then we visited “Alliance for Independence” or “AFI” for a field trip. See, I had known AJ on a personal level, therefore seeing how he interacted with “Clinically Healthy” people (I say that with quotations because I believe that most the time clinically healthy people are less healthy spiritually and emotionally than people who have disabilities, like AJ). Anyways, back to Alliance for Independence. Alliance for Independence is a non-profit organization who’s mission is to “offer individuals with disabilities the avenues to explore and experience personal growth and achievement through awareness, education, community resources and personal relationships”. Being there for the short time that we were gave me a chance to see people with disabilities interact with each other in person. It was an awesome experience and I really feel like it gave me a better perspective on the characters in the play being able to see people with all different kinds of disabilities act as a community.

In closing, I really feel like AFI’s vision should be one that we all share, “our vision is recognizing individuals with disabilities for their uniqueness, beauty, and determination of their spirit.”