Volunteer Spotlight: Amelia
Last summer, Amelia reached out to The Nora Project in hopes of working with us on her bat mitzvah project. At TNP, we love when people, particularly students, come to us with a passion for inclusion and a desire to collaborate. If we can make it happen, we will! In Amelia’s case, we came up with three paths for her to contribute to TNP and help us further our mission of promoting disability inclusion in schools and communities. Amelia immediately jumped on board with all of them and took all three on beautifully. Today, we get to share all that she has done and we couldn’t be more excited.
The first project was being an ambassador extraordinaire in one of our Storyteller Project classrooms. Amelia visited with some of our fourth graders in Kenilworth, Illinois to share about her own experience living with a disability. It was important to Amelia that she share with students what an invisible disability is and how they can be inclusive of all of those with disabilities, visible or invisible. Amelia is very lucky to be a student at a school that has been inclusive of her since she began there. At 13-years-old, Amelia already understands the power that an inclusive education can have on a person’s identity. She wanted to spread that message to as many people as she could. We know this group of 4th grade students have been positively impacted by her stories and look forward to each of her visits with them. The teacher in the classroom summed up Amelia’s partnership beautifully by saying, "Amelia's visit to our classroom offered students the opportunity to learn more about what a hidden disability is, and the impact on an individual and their family. By sharing her story, Amelia brought a tangible understanding of the goals of The Nora Project -- the importance of sharing our stories in order to build empathy and understanding. Amelia's visit was transformative for my 4th graders."
The second project we asked Amelia to be a part of was conducting some interviews. She spoke so highly of the people in her life and how they have created an incredibly inclusive world for her. We wanted to hear from them about how they view inclusion and disability within their community, home, and school. You can watch Amelia’s interviews with her brother, sister, friend, and teacher here.
The final project we had for Amelia was helping us put together this blog post. We knew we had to share Amelia’s work with our supporters to help further her impact. In December, we had the privilege of reading Amelia’s bat mitzvah speech. It is such a beautiful piece that we knew we had to include it in this post. To give you a sense of the message she is shares, here are two must-read excerpts:
“In our house, making accommodations and working on inclusion is part of everyday life. Learning to help each other overcome challenges is something we have always done.”
She goes on to later say, “The message of inclusion is one of my family inheritances. It’s a privilege to be able to learn these important messages of inclusion from my family, and help teach others this message as well.”
You can read Amelia’s full speech here.
Thank you Amelia for reaching out to us to collaborate with you for your bat mitzvah! Your passion, generosity, and kindness in all that you have done with us is outstanding. Keep demonstrating an Ability Inclusive Mindset and being the disability advocate that you are. The Nora Project will be cheering you on as you continue to make the world more inclusive for all!
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