New Outreach to Youth with Disabilities

Organizations can tap into their alumni to help with outreach to recruit others with disabilities in their home countries.

Do you not yet have alumni with disabilities?

• Contact Mobility International USA (MIUSA) to find if there are FLEX or YES alumni with disabilities in the targeted country for recruitment
  
• Visit MIUSA's YouTube channel for videos to show
  
• Have your staff and volunteers learn about disability etiquette and tips to create a welcoming program.
  
• Refer students, parents, host families and youth professionals to the three issues focusing on youth with disabilities in the A World Awaits You online journals.

Each year Mobility International USA conducts a Reentry Workshop for youth with disabilities from Eurasia and predominately Muslim countries who have studied for a year in the United States. These youth return home to encourage others with disabilities to seek out international experiences. Read some of their experiences and share with other potential applicants:

• “Traveling and being away from my family helped me to increase my independence. My goal is to be as independent as possible so I can attend a University either in the U.S. or Egypt. I am blind, but that has not been a problem for me.  I had accommodations made to help me participate fully in activities.  I was sight guided and had things explained to me when necessary. I learned Braille and new things about technology to further my learning opportunities, as well as received orientation and mobility training to learn how to use a white cane to guide myself rather than relying on others.  Those opportunities weren’t as readily available to me in Egypt.  In the U.S. there were many opportunities to learn and grow.”  Mahmoud Garem, vision impairment, an YES high school exchange student from Egypt who was placed in Wisconsin in 2004-05
• "I learned how to be open about my disability. I no longer set barriers for myself. I want to reveal the potential I have. Though I had some hesitations on my return to Russia, I chose to take classes at the university, rather than study at home and take exams twice a year, which is the common practice for most disabled students. I finished my first year in the Department of History (regional studies) at Omsk State University. I am glad I made this decision, because despite the difficulties I face every day, it is compensated by the valuable experience of studying in this setting. Overcoming is not always easy, but these strong, determined, and motivated people whom I had the chance to meet during my [U.S] stay, helped me. The results of their work showed me the importance of being active. They showed me that the first step involves breaking stereotypes about disabled people. Their own experience inspired me because they started changing the world around them by taking the initiative and making efforts to have a better future. It has become a real stimulus for my further actions at home." Alfiya Battalova, uses a prosthesis, a FLEX high school exchange student from Russia placed in Minnesota in 2001-02 (excerpted from the Bradley Hearld)

How can you begin today in making outreach to youth with disabilities, and families and schools who will host them, a part of the regular outreach process in the FLEX/YES programs?

• Find someone from the disability community to be on your advisory committees, board of directors or as an intern or staff in your office. Read about the experiences of interns with disabilities and their supervisors at U.S. based exchange offices. For more information, read this booklet on recruiting and accommodating people with disabilities in internship or employment settings.
•  Exhibit or network at disability conferences to expand one's pool of participants and hosts. These types of events can easily be found on special education, parent and youth with disabilities national clearinghouse websites.
  

• Identify opportunities to present directly to the disability community through disability organizations websites that often have listings by state. Here's a few to get started:

1. National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities
2. National Center on Secondary Education and Transition
3. The Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers
4. National Youth Leadership Network
5. The Federation for Children with Special Needs
6. Council for Exceptional Children
   
7. Information on U.S. Disability-Specific Organizations
8. Muslim Youth Organizations in the United States
9. Disability Organizations in the Muslim World
   

For information on finding participants in other countries, search the Disability Organizations Worldwide database for youth with disabilities organizations worldwide.