RCLD Outreach Training

Section 1: Get learning

Having rural cultural humility and independent living values

Your community values

Perhaps in this rural community, they haven’t thought a lot about disability because an individual with a disability is just a community member or congregation member and not necessarily different. Find ways to get to know their community values, who they are as a community, and how their values may be like some of those in Independent Living.

A group of four men, one in a wheelchair, each hold a fish

Two young girls, one with a visible disability and one without, smile for the camera

Example

Dori grew up in a rural community in South Carolina as a person with a visible disability. She and her best friend always talked about the same hobbies they had and what they could do together. They played at each other’s houses and at the neighborhood playground together. The two girls found they were more alike than different. They were community members and friends, and disability didn’t change that.

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” – Margaret J. Wheatley