Seeking better access into society for people with disabilities.
Highlights:
- Six million 179 thousand 890 people live in Mexico with some type of disability to walk, see, hear, or speak, among other disabilities.
- During this month of July, Disability Pride Month was celebrated to celebrate disability and seek greater access for people with disabilities in society.
- Luis Quintana Quintana lives with incomplete quadriplegia after a spinal cord injury caused by a car accident triggered by an individual in a drunken state.
- Disability Pride Month is an event to celebrate people living with disabilities.
Frida Kahlo, who lived in a situation of disability due to the consequences of a serious accident, did not stop becoming one of the most beloved and celebrated artists in Mexico and the world. Stephen Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and was the first to develop an equation to unify quantum physics and general relativity. Helen Keller was an American author and the first person to earn a college degree despite being deaf-blind. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president of the USA during World War II, and after the consequences of polio, he was a wheelchair user.
A disability is any condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or interact with the world around them. Six million 179 thousand 890 people live in Mexico with some type of disability to walk, see, hear, speak, among other disabilities. This represents 4.9 percent of the country’s total population, according to the 2020 Population and Housing Census.
During this month of July, Disability Pride Month was celebrated, which aims to celebrate disability and seek greater access for people with disabilities in society. It is a way of applauding “the pride that not because you have a limitation you cannot participate in something”, says Luis Quintana, founder and general director of “Todo Accesible“.
The pride that not because you have a limitation you cannot participate in something.
Luis Quintana
Quintana lives with incomplete quadriplegia after a spinal cord injury caused by a car accident triggered by an individual in a drunken state. Although Luis has a disability of physical origin, this does not define him as a person. As a result of the accident, he founded “Todo Accesible”, to eliminate existing architectural, cultural, and technological barriers so that all people, regardless of their physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory condition, can integrate into any space.
What universal accessibility seeks is that any type of person can enter the spaces and use them, and when they are inside a space, they can integrate.
Luis Quintana
In Latin America, “we are far behind in awareness. 70% of the population with a disability is unemployed”, explains Luis. This month of awareness precisely reminds us that “we have to begin to see the person for what the person is, what they can contribute“, find moments of unity, accept the values that we all have, “make disability visible and look for how a person can be included” in society.
Luis shares that his purpose motivates him to transform every day. The Baja Californian company SunRider Tours, for example, motivated him to take a diving course under the agreement that if he learned to dive, Mario, the owner of the boat, would make adaptations so that people living with disabilities could be part of the diving experience and get to see sea lions, mantas and even the whale shark in the paradisiacal Sea of Cortez. Luis even ended up designing a wetsuit that met his specific requirements.
Disability Pride Month is an event to celebrate people living with disabilities. This movement has roots in similar pride movements in other communities, such as LGBT+, which have long survived under a similarly oppressive system. In this case, Disability Pride wants to celebrate and encourage society to be better. “The differences we have are what makes us unique and makes us stand out,” concludes Luis Quintana.
