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4:45am May 27, 2014

Interviews with self-advocates.  Captions available on the Youtube videos, transcript below:

My name is Jackie Sue Hope, I live in Florence, South Carolina.  I’m originally from Pennysylvania but I moved — I moved around the time my mom started working for the Valley Forge company but she moved to South Carolina — it’s called Amana, and she works at a flag company there.  

And at first I was kinda scared because I didn’t know anybody from South Carolina.  I worked at the hotel.  I did all kinds of certain jobs down there.  Now I’m working at Braxton-Collins which is a place for adults with special needs and I do the phone — I used to be the president for Our Voices Count Too.  I do the committee, and I do the personal outcomes, and I do Special Olympics.  
And the important thing is that you want people to be nice to you because you don’t want nobody to be mean because it’s not right because people should be treated as equal and they should respect one another and not hurt each other for no reason.
Cause I have been nice to people but sometimes they don’t understand what I’m trying to say to them.  But I try to solve the problem by myself but I like to help, I like to help everybody.  But sometimes they take advantage of you because you’re different than they are or if you have money or just a  friends to talk to — they take advantage sometimes.
“Jackie, what can someone do if someone is taking advantage of them, or being mean to them?”
Tell the staff, because the staff is always there to help you when you get upset or if you have a problem with somebody you can always tell them because they’re a lot of people that have trouble with different things but the staff is always there to give a hand.  And I always appreciate my staff that I work with, her name is [???] and I work with the [??????], she’s part of self-advocacy for [?????].
And sometimes when I have problems I try to go to the staff or to my family, because my family supports me very much.  And I enjoy talking to everybody, no matter what they look like or where they’re from or, I respect everybody’s feelings.  Yes sir.
“You mentioned a lot of jobs that you have, can you tell us about how you got your different jobs?”
Well, when I first moved down here, I went to Florence Matthew Wildby Center, they told me about the hotel job, and I was struggling with the beds, so they kinda moved me around from different things to do, because the spreads were so hard to get on the bed and sometimes you had to bend down and clean up and everything but it’s a struggle because we don’t have much work, we don’t get paid a lot of money, but everything counts in our state.  Because our state is nice and everything, but I just wish I and more money to do things to support my family, because they have regular jobs but I don’t,  because they were born normal, but me I’m not.  Because I have special needs and nobody else in my family has special needs except my cousin.  Evan, now he has special needs too, but he’s autistic.
“Now when someone has special needs, what are some things they can do to find a job, and to earn money and to just have a good life?”
They could find a job coach, or they could find a staff to talk to, or they have a service coordinator they could talk to.  But sometimes it’s so hard to find a job these days because the economy is not going so well right now.  But it would be nice if we could have jobs that could give us more money, but money’s not everything.  It’s about the people you work for or the friends you have, that’s what it’s all about.  It’s not always about money, cause money’s not everything.
“Can you tell us about some of your friends that you have?”
Like I have Jaquetta she’s from Lake City, my friend Christina’s from Lake City, my friend Shirley is from Lake City, and I just made a new friend out the door — his name’s Terry.  And I met — I mean I’ve met a lot of people all my life and I enjoy them so much I appreciate everybody that are helping me out and sometimes I wish things weren’t so hard.  Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t struggle as much, but i keep on going no matter what happens.  That’s what I’m here for.
“Here at this conference?”
Yes.  To learn about friendship, to learn how to help a hand when they need help or somebody to talk to when they get upset or frustrated.  Yes sir, and I’m doing a presentation tomorrow, it’s called “Express Yourself” It’s a good presentation, me and my friend Jaquetta is going to do it tomorrow.
“Then the last thing I want to ask you is what do you do to support your friends?”
I support them because a true friend always understands where you’re coming from and what your family is like and I always appreciate everybody helping me.
“How do you help your friends?”
I help my friends by solving a problem or talking to them or just having a good time.  But sometimes I have a hard time with it because sometimes it’s just very, very difficult to understand, you know, what the situation is because I never know what the situations’ gonna be unless I know in time.  And sometimes I will — I wish — sometimes I wish I knew more about friends because friends are very important to me and so is my family and my momma too.
Notes:
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