Jean Vanier wins $2.1 million prize for 'advocacy of belonging'

Canadian humanist Jean Vanier is the 2015 winner of the Templeton Prize, a $2.1 million award for his work bringing adults with and without intellectual disabilities together to live and work as peers in 147 L'Arche communities around the world.

The Templeton Prize, established by the late American financier and philanthropist John Templeton, recognizes someone who's contributed to affirming life's spiritual dimension, through insight, discovery or practical works.

"Isn't it vital that the culture of winning so common in our societies today, be transformed?" Vanier said in thanking the judges. "A terrible rift is created between winners and losers, between the so-called normal and the so-called abnormal, between the rich and the poor."

Vanier said that the people with intellectual disabilities he's lived with for 50 years "have taught me more than all those teachers and professors in schools and universities that I have attended. They have taught me about what it means to be human."

In an interview with BLOOM in 2013, Vanier said: "We need to understand that our treasure is not in our power, but in the deep acceptance of who we are, and who we are is different but we are all people. If we try to be who we are not, that tension will someday explode."

Read Vanier's acceptance speech.

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Israeli military opens training to disabled youth

By Louise Kinross

Special in Uniform is a world-first: a four-year training program that prepares youth with disabilities to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) alongside their peers. No other nation's military trains people with disabilities for service. A decade ago IDF Lt.-Col Ariel Almog argued it was time to include youth with special needs and began “one by one to take youngsters and train them,” says Yossi Kahana, Special in Uniform co-founder. Today the program, funded by private donors and the Israeli government, works with 200 adults with a variety of intellectual and physical disabilities and plans to expand to military bases across Israel.

BLOOM: What is the purpose of Special in Uniform?

Yossi Kahana:  In Israel, army service is the gateway to successful integration into society and the workforce. The entire population joins what is known as the people’s army at age 18, after Grade 12, for two to three years. So siblings, friends and neighbours go to the army and youth with special needs stay home. They receive a letter saying you're not eligible and you're released from service. A number of years ago the commander Lt.-Col Ariel Almog decided that it's time to include people with special needs because they add great ability and can contribute. We wanted to open the door to them. We did a pilot of 20 men and women and it became an official program and now we're launching it nationally.

BLOOM: Who can participate?

Yossi Kahana: The age range is 18 to 24. They have a variety of physical and mental disabilities. Some have physical challenges and some have autism or Down syndrome. We work with their special-education school so in their last year they begin coming one day and then two days a week to our program. We have an apartment where they're trained to live full-time, first a couple of days a month and then for longer periods of time. Parents of children with special needs tend to protect their children so they don't have the same opportunities to do things on their own—to go to the mall and shop or communicate with the public or learn how to be responsible. They don't know how to act in a public place. We're giving them an education they're not getting in special-ed school or at home. They start as volunteers and along the way most will become [paid] soldiers.

BLOOM: Are there any disabilities you can't accommodate for?

Yossi Kahana: It's how they perform with the disability. They have to have a certain level of communication and understanding and learn how to behave among others and work on their own. They have to be able to function well in the community. Our job is to train them and coach them and push them.

BLOOM: In a video posted online we see participants going to live on the base for a week-long basic training.

Yossi Kahana: That's the last stage of training.

BLOOM: What are some of the jobs they do? In the video some were packaging masks?

Yossi Kahana: Each citizen gets a gas mask and batteries and medicine in a package. So some of them are in charge of putting that together. Others are taking computers that aren't working apart—for parts—or working in the kitchen or office. Each is assigned to a meaningful job and they are coming in each morning and doing their job. There is a program for soldiers with autism working in intelligence. They are analyzing what comes in on satellite maps from different locations and they can find a needle in a haystack. They have a visual ability that is 10 times more accurate than the regular person and much faster.

BLOOM: What kind of support staff do you have to make this possible?

Yossi Kahana: We have therapists, social workers and school special-ed directors, principals and teachers working with us. It's a big team and there's a lot of work behind each person that becomes a soldier.

BLOOM: It sounds very expensive.

Yossi Kahana: At the end of the day it's about funding. Initially we had philanthropists in Israel supporting us, and now we receive some funding from the government. We're trying to educate the government and communities around the world in order to raise more funds.

BLOOM: What changes do you see in participants?

Yossi Kahana: When they're getting the uniform you see the smile and the joy and the self-esteem is rising right away. This is something like magic. Every day on the base they are having so much dignity. They start the program thinking they can't do anything. Their parents have protected them and they didn't get the challenge or chance to go out and try to live on their own. We see an increase in self-esteem and they do what they thought they couldn't do. They are doing a job, they know how to work, what the responsibility is. Just imagine when the family and neighbours see the person come home in uniform. It changes the environment. For the parents there is so much joy and pride.

BLOOM: I just read an article in the Jerusalem Post about a survey that found that 40 per cent of Israelis don't want their child to go to school with a child with disability. It seems there's still quite a bit of stigma there. How do you make the army a welcoming place?

Yossi Kahana: Israel is a young country and there's a lot more work to be done in terms of acceptance and inclusion. But before our people with special needs come, the commander gathers all the soldiers and educates them about these new soldiers: what they need, what the challenge is. We're preparing them. And we see some interesting things. One of our commanders told me that when she has a regular soldier who's a problem—who wants to go home or is not coming in on time—she matches this soldier with one of ours, and she sees an incredible increase in morale. Now that soldier has a responsibility to someone who has a disability and feels ashamed to run home when these guys are trying so hard. Hopefully our soldiers' interactions with soldiers with special needs will lead to more tolerance and acceptance in the real world.

In the short run this program is making our soldiers more sensitive and tolerant to people who are a little different than them. In the long run, we [increase] the value of the army because no army in the world is accepting people with special needs and disabilities. Our soldiers are helping to build this army and they are sharing the same dining room, eating lunch together, and accepting our soldiers with special needs as part of them. It's a big change. We hope that in future every base in the country that has jobs will accept people with special needs. It will be huge.

BLOOM: What difference will Special in Uniform make to these people's futures?

Yossi Kahana: If we look at the big picture, if you serve in the army many doors are open to you. That's true for regular people and it's even more true for people with special needs who have difficulty getting a job in the community and being part of society. For them, the army is a golden gate to the community.

BLOOM: How did you get involved in the program?

Yossi Kahana: I'm the father of a child with special needs. My older son is serving in the army and my younger son, Gershon, who is nine years old, is autistic. My dream is that my younger son will one day join his brother in the army. So I helped to put together the Special in Uniform program. I co-founded the project and created the plan for it and advocate for it.

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After a disaster, outcomes split on gender lines

What happens to people disabled by disasters like the 2005 Pakistan earthquake?

That depends if you're a man or a woman.

A University of Alberta study finds most paraplegic women three years after the Pakistan earthquake were abandoned by spouses and families, while men with the same disabilities were not. The study was published in the July issue of the journal Disasters.

A survey of 73 adults in six remote villages in Kashmir found that of 30 women married at the time of the quake and still hospitalized, 24 had been abandoned by their husbands, who had also abandoned their children. A physician noted that some women deliberately caused bed sores because they feared neglect and abuse if discharged home.

"Everybody has walked away from these women—forgotten about them completely,” said researcher Zubia Mumtaz, an assistant professor in the School of Public Health who studies gender inequality. “Society did not want them. They were just abandoned.”

In contrast, the wives of men with spinal-cord injuries lived with their husbands in hospital over the three years -- so that they could attend to all their needs, and the men were actively supported by their parents and other relatives.

While women's families initially rallied round them, researchers said, the support evaporated.

Most husbands of women with paraplegia had remarried—or were agitating to do so. No wives of men with paraplegia had left their husbands.

"The primary rationale given for remarriage was that a woman was required to undertake the domestic tasks that a paraplegic wife could no longer accomplish—child-rearing, farming and retrieving water and wood."

Monthly stipends were given to the spinal-cord victims. Men received about $70 a month while women got $30. The income would have been significant for the women, who were previously dependent. But it was often appropriated by husbands who, after leaving them for new families, made a monthly trek to the hospital to pick it up.

The researchers note that gender differences meant more women than men were disabled in the Pakistan quake. “The earthquake was unique in that it took place at about 9 o’clock in the morning, when the women were at home but the men were out in the fields," Mumtaz says. "When the homes crashed, when the roofs collapsed, those that weren’t killed were pinned by the steel roof beams." Sixty-five to 74 per cent of people diagnosed with spinal-cord injury were women.

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L'Arche's lesson: Pay attention

Bénédicte Millet is a small, spritely, silver-haired dynamo.

Though it was the end of a long, busy day at L'Arche in Trosly, France she sat with me, listened attentively to my questions, and gave careful thought to her responses. She looked me in the eye and made me feel that what I had to say mattered.

Bénédicte works with a team of staff who support volunteers who come from across Europe to work at L'Arche -- a community that brings together adults with intellectual disabilities and young adult volunteers.

During our interview an older resident came to meet with Bénédicte. I assumed they had a prior appointment. Instead of ending our conversation, Bénédicte introduced us and explained I was from Canada. She treated this gentleman with great respect. "Bravo, Canada!" the man exclaimed. He then sat patiently while we finished talking.

Bénédicte first heard about L'Arche over 20 years ago when she was working as a speech therapist. "I was in Palestine working with deaf children and I met Jean Vanier who was there with a group from L'Arche on a pilgrimage," she said. "I was interested in how they related to each other. I felt they had very deep relationships. I came here to see and I've been here for 21 years. It's changed my way of life."

Before L'Arche, Bénédicte says she had always lived in her head -- "organizing, reflecting. I had lots of ideas, but I feel I was far from a human life. I was far away from a lot of people."

The message to change her life came from a L'Arche resident.

"I was still running a lot," she recalled. "To clean, to go to the supermarket, working, working, working. And one day a handicapped man in the home took my hand and told me: 'Now, you come and you sit here and you stay here.' And I did.

"I understood how this was a deep message for me to change my life and to pay more attention. In fact, I realize that (people with disabilities) have taught me to be really present. I see how I am different now. How I can be much closer to people. How my life is more interesting and more lively."

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The strongest people 'know how to be weak'

"You know what – it’s easy to be brave. Just remain yourself in the face of adversity. I love simple people. The ones who don’t change at every detour on the road of life…Maybe this is exactly what binds me to these people who are affected by an intellectual disability. Their simplicity—it’s not something transitory; it is innate and natural. Their courage is not overinflated; rather, it is silent—and it falters. Because courage also sometimes means knowing how to be afraid. This past weekend, Gustave, my taxi driver in Port-au-Prince, told me that the strongest people are those who know how to be weak. Surely, a 43-year-old man who survived the catastrophe only to have to dig through the rubble to find his three lost children, surely he would not tell me a lie." Jonathan Boulet-Groulx, L'Arche Haiti

The strongest people 'know how to be weak'

I met with a friend of mine yesterday and she told me about a friend of hers – Canadian photographer Jonathan Boulet-Groulx – who is in Haiti working at a home for people with intellectual disabilities run by L’Arche. You can read his moving blog at Mwen pa fou.

This got me thinking about my three trips to Haiti. Six years ago, my husband D’Arcy and I volunteered at an orphanage for a week in Port-Au-Prince. That’s where we met two children we would eventually adopt. During that trip, we visited Wings of Hope – a home for children with disabilities (photo above from the Wings of Hope website). Many of the children had cerebral palsy. We had taken some old but still useful equipment the physiotherapists were no longer using at the former Bloorview site. We also brought books. I'll never forget the excitement of a teenage girl when she saw we had a book with the alphabet in sign language. She was deaf.

The home was run by Americans, and it was shocking to learn that the kids never got out. We were told that disability was viewed as a manifestation of evil – a curse – in Haiti, and that most children with disabilities were abandoned at birth. People with differences were ridiculed and families didn’t visit the home.

Out in the streets, people with disabilities simply did not exist. You did not see them! In addition to the stigma that kept people hidden, Port-Au-Prince can’t be navigated from a wheelchair or walker. The streets are steep, littered with rocks and potholes and lined with open sewers.

It made me sad to think of those delightful children hidden away, separated from their families and the community, children who had so much to contribute and deserved to be able to learn and explore outside the walls of the home.

Handicap International estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 people in the country have had amputations as a result of the earthquake in January. How will these people be integrated back into a society that shuns people with disabilities, where three out of four people are unemployed, and where the little work available is hard physical labour?

We can only hope that the increased visibility of disability and difference will break common stereotypes and increase opportunities. I salute Jonathan Boulet-Groulx and the work he’s doing to bring awareness to children and adults with intellectual disabilities in Haiti, people who have been particularly marginalized in that country. Bravo! Louise

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