A feeling of welcoming and belonging

Working with people who have a disability, and seeing how many in society respond to their circumstances, makes me really wonder how far we have come since Australia was a founding signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Across society, while we promote diversity and inclusion, it seems to me that while improving accessibility and inclusion is an ideal goal, how do we, in practice, create that critical sense of welcome and belonging? Robert Hensel’s 1969 poem on his insights into his disability captures the inner experience and resilience that those without a disability rarely understand:

I look beyond a window of pain.
A fragmented glass, with tears of stain.
My life of sorrow brings out the fire.

To write things, that to me inspire.
My thoughts are out into a poem.
Giving my words, a voice of their own.

Printed on paper, is the pain that I leave.
Releasing myself, of all that I grieve.

All people with disabilities have an outstanding tapestry of different layers of colours and textures, where each individual has their own open door and willingness, indeed, a desire, to belong, to be proactively included in and contribute in a way that accepts, values, and recognises their role in society. Those with a disability may feel as if they are travelling on a lonely road, yet that should not be the case, and we can be there with them. Don’t you all think such an approach would make for a more inclusive environment to the benefit of us all?