Disabilities don't discourage
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- To: <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:31:35 -0400
Jackson Sun, TN, USA
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Disabilities don't discourage
By Ned Hunter
Newsom, who is deaf, and Crisp who is blind, both work and contribute to their
community
Robert Newsom doesn't carry a cell phone. It wouldn't do him any good.
Newsom, who is deaf, does a lot of his communicating with hand gestures.
But the deafness doesn't mean he can't work.
Newsom worked at auto parts maker TBDN in Jackson for 10 years. He is now
employed by Goodwill Industries of West Tennessee.
But getting those jobs, and keeping them, isn't easy.
"I have to have an interpreter, and I have to make that clear. When I do that
with employers they often feel awkward," Newsom said by phone through an sign
language interpreter over a live video conference call. "I get sideways looks,
and I think, what do you want me to do? I am deaf, and suddenly other workers
are like well, OK, how did you get the job if I am deaf?"
If Newsom sounds a little frustrated, he sometimes is. At 39, he has learned
that while the world of silence and noise are different, they can coexist more
easily than most people think.
That's a message that Harvey Buchanan of the Tennessee Career Center-Jackson
and Glen Barr of the Jackson Center for Independent Living hope to make clear
throughout this month.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness month.
"We are bringing the awareness of this month to the forefront for employees and
employers and the benefits of hiring people with disabilities," said Buchanan.
He is the center's disability program navigator. "I prefer to call it hiring
people with abilities."
Being blind hasn't stopped Lynda Crisp from having a near 24-year career with
the Western Mental Health Institute in Bolivar. Crisp is a Telephone Operator I.
The job, as with others, makes her feel useful, productive, and a part of
society.
"My biggest fear, if I really have one, it would be not to be productive,"
Crisp said by phone. "It is more than just answering the phone. For me, it's
one of the many facets of giving me purpose, of being able to get up."
Crisp said employers shouldn't fear hiring those with disabilities, because
those people are aware of their limitations and know how to work within them.
"I am not going out to apply for a job that requires driving," she said with
emphasis. "I understand that realistically I cannot have that job but at least
give me an opportunity to try to work.''
Newsom doesn't remember the fever that stole his hearing 35 years ago when he
was 4. He only knows how dramatically it changed his life.
Two years ago he was shot in the head and hip when trying to visit a friend on
Hollywood Drive.
After driving himself to the hospital, Newsom was restrained by emergency room
staff as he waved his hands frantically trying to communicate. He can scream,
but speaks few words.
"I finally convinced them to get me a paper and a pen, and I wrote, 'I need to
call the police,'" Newsom said.
A person who knew sign language was eventually called. That was on June 22,
2006.
The man who shot Newsom is in jail for 20 years. But the bullet still is in
Newsom's neck, too close to major nerves for doctors to remove.
"They were afraid removing it would cause brain damage," he said.
The career center has several tools to help the disabled become employed, said
Harvey Buchanan, who also is the city's District 4 councilman. The center has
computers with voice technology, information in braille, telephone text
machines, and large print computer programs.
The center also helps in other ways.
"We also help remove barriers to employment, including transportation, housing
and providing linkage to assisted technology," Buchanan said.
He wants employers to know there are tax incentives available to those who
employ the disabled.
"We are helping to dispel the myth that people with disabilities cannot meet
employers' needs," Buchanan said.
While the Center for Independent Living does not work to employ the disabled,
it works to help get them to their jobs, said Glen Barr.
The center helps make a person's home more accessible through the building of
wheelchair ramps and other accessories.
"To be employed you first must be able to get out of your house, or really you
are under house arrest, and can't accomplish very much," Barr said.
Once outside, the center helps the disabled get where they are going.
"We have helped people get hand controls for their cars or vans," Barr said.
A nonprofit organization, how much the center can help, depends on how much
funding is available, Barr said.
Crisp lost her sight her senior year at Bolivar Central High School. That was
in 1980. She was 17. Doctors never found out why.
"I started having headaches, and ended up at the doctors and the hospital, and
they thought it might be tumors or something with my spine," she said. "After
all types of tests, the last thing I knew was a doctor told me it was a pinched
optic nerve and no one knows how it happened."
The loss changed her life.
"I wanted to go to medical school, and now that was not going to happen," she
said.
Crisp now relies on family, friends and co-workers to get her to and from home,
work, the store, nearly everywhere. She also depends on them to paint her
pictures of what they see.
"I used to love to observe nature," she said. "Now I have to depend on others
to describe things to me."
The dependency sometimes frustrates her, but she says she's not angry at God.
Much worse, she said, would be if she lost her memories.
"I knew what colors were. I knew what water was from the sound," she said. "My
memory is something I have been depending on for nearly 30 years. It makes me
truly grateful that I had vision for 17 years."
Crisp, 45, was appointed twice to the board of the Tennessee State
Rehabilitation Council by Gov. Phil Bredesen.
She wants those like her to know there are organizations that they can contact
for help - like the National Federation for the Blind and the Arkansas
Enterprises for the Blind.
An Alamo native, Newsom wants employers to know that having a job means as
much, or perhaps more, to the disabled as it does to workers who have no
disabilities.
Visit jacksonsun.com and share your thoughts.
- Ned Hunter, 425-9641
http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071014/BUSINESS/710140329
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