Name: Reveca Torres

Age: post undergraduate

Assertive Devices: Power Wheelchair

Exchange Organizations: Mobility International USA, National Center for Physical Activity and Disability, and Dance Detour.

Program countries: Paris, France & England 2002

Program length: Two and half weeks

                                                      Program type: Cross Disability and Leadership Exchange

Reveca Torres always dreamed of being a fashion designer. When she and some of her classmates at Harper College had a chance to participate in a fashion design competition in Paris they were ecstatic. Harper College is a community college in Illinois. To learn more about traveling abroad while in community college go to A World Awaits You.

“Paris helped me a lot as a fashion designer because I got to see the work of up and coming designers from all over the world. I also got to go the museums and see all the art in person that I had been studying. I have a real advantage over people who didn’t go. The trip was inspiring and helped drive the work of the students who went.”

Torres returned from the Paris program energized and ready to see more of the world. She applied for the cross disability and leadership exchange to England with Mobility International USA just after completing her Arts & Sciences Degree in Fashion Design and was accepted.

Torres decided she needed to see what she could do on her own. She identified an attendant to accompany her on the trip and for the first time since becoming paralyzed in a car accident while returning from a trip with her family to visit family in Mexico, Torres would be with a group of her peers who also have disabilities.

“Before I went to England, I had planned to stop my education after getting my AAS, because I thought I could not go away to school. I worried about finding an attendant and I was culturally worried about leaving home because I come from a family that is very large and close to one another. After this trip I applied to University of Arizona I knew that if I didn’t do it right away, then I would never go.”

Video: Reveca Torres talks about her first exchange experience.

Reveca, confident in her own personal research, generally recommends to others traveling abroad the use of a power chair but says that taking a manual chair has its advantages, as it can be easier to manage steps and narrow doorways of Europe with a manual chair.

Recently, Reveca took a position at the University of Illinois at Chicago conducting research for the National Center for Physical Activity and Disability on the causes and consequences of obesity for teenagers with disabilities. Torres is also considering a graduate degree in International Studies.

To talk with Reveca about her experience, or another member of the Peer-to-Peer Network go to Request a Peer. If you are a person with a disability who has traveled internationally for the purpose of studying, working, teaching or volunteers and would like to share your experience with others please become a Peer today! Stay tuned to see what other exotic experiences our peers had have had and that you could have with help from the National Clearinghouse on Disability & Exchange.

The NCDE Peer to Peer network includes more than 300 members with experiences to share about traveling the world to study, work, volunteer, teach, learn, and live. If you are thinking about or actively planning your international exchange experience, request a peer and talk about your plans today!

Peers are matched using some or all of the following as criteria:

• Country of destination

•  Disability type

• Program type

• Gender