A disability is when someone can’t do something that they should naturally be able to do. For example some people are born blind, meaning they can’t see. Some people have accidents and then can’t walk anymore. But there are plenty of people with disabilities who have special abilities.

People should be thought of as more than their disabilities.

Some people make up for their disabilities with extraordinary abilities

There are many practical ways to help people with disabilities

Facts about abilities

When you read the list below do you think of that person doing something amazing, or being famous or do you think of their disability?? All the people below had a disability of some type. If you don’t who they are or what their disability is then make an effort to find out…
Tiger Woods
Bruce Willis
Winston Churchill
Julia Roberts
Helen Keller
Stevie Wonder
Andrea Bocelli
Harrison Ford
John Kirwan
Muhammad Ali
Michael J Fox
Hugo Weaving
Terry Fox
Mark Inglis
Tom Whittaker
Christopher Reeve

The World Health Organization estimates that there are as many as 600 million people with disabilities around the world

New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006, alongside Māori and English.

The first known teacher, in New Zealand, of sign language was Dorcas Mitchell, who taught the children of one family in Charteris Bay, Lyttelton Harbour, from 1868 to 1877. By 1877 she had taught 42 pupils.

If you want to see some New Zealand Sign Language then follow this link : http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~pondy/nzsl/

Constable Bryan’s all time favourite role model/hero was a man named Terry Fox who had a disability (he had his right leg amputated). Read Terry’s amazing story below:

Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As a teenager he was involved in many sports, but Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with bone cancer and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977. 
While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.
He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.
After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980.When he started almost nobody came to see him run. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

On September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. By this stage hundreds of thousands of Canadians had clapped, cheered or run with Terry Fox on his marathon of hope.. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22

Terry was an amazing man and always when asked how he continued to run on despite his disability or pain he replied:
“The running I can do, even if I have to crawl every last mile”
To see Terry’s amazing story click the link below:

http://www.terryfoxrun.org/english/resource/video/default.asp?s=1
 
To this day millions of dollars around the world every year are raised in the name of Terry Fox for cancer research...nobody mentions Terry’s Disability but what they ALWAYS mention is his courage