CEO of Special Olympics Mary Davis explains why employment is so crucial for people with disabilities, the benefits of diverse workplaces, and how far we have to go before reaching equity, in honor of this National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month.

Highlighting National Disability Employment Awareness Month

I spoke with mary Davis, the ceo of the special olympics, all about national disability employment awareness month and my employment is such a crucial step when it comes to equity. Take a look in relation to employment, I would say. And indeed one of our board members reaffirmed that the path to dignity passes through employment and for all of us, what we do is important. And often times people are defined by what they do. It's nearly the next question after what's your name or what you work out or what do you, what do you do or what are you involved in? So, people with intellectual disability, which is the population that were particularly concerned with within the whole field of disability have a right to employment. Yeah, absolutely mary so let's talk about some of the challenges a lot of disabled people face still to this day while trying to just enter into the workforce. Yeah. And oftentimes baker it's been accepted for the talents that they have and people recognizing those talents, you know, when people think about people with intellectual disability, they feel sorry for them, but that's not what people with intellectual disability want because they know their talents, their proven on the field of play in sport for example, and through the experiences that they've learned in sport, they have learned the skills of how to be a good teammate, how to turn up on time, how to show determination and courage and grit and these are all principles and things that are needed to succeed in the workplace as well. And people with intellectual disability have those in spades and they also have many leadership qualities because it's one of the training that we do with people with intellectual disability is our inclusive leadership and training that we we offer. So what what we are doing is train our athletes so that they have the abilities and the skills not just on the playing field, but that they can transfer those into a workplace situation. We know businesses thrive and succeed when they're diverse. Where you have a broad diversity of gender, race, sexuality, but that also means disability as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we need all these different perspectives and different ideas coming forth. And when you see a successful companies and successful businesses and you analyze, you will normally find that they have a very diverse workforce for anybody who wants to share their support. What's one thing that they can do right now, I would say one thing they can, they can do a couple of things they can choose to include. So every single person can choose to include. They can volunteer for a special olympics event so that they can have an account an encounter with the special olympics athletes and see their talents and abilities first hand, they can talk to their employers if there is in employment setting that can go and talk to their employment employers. If they're not hiring people with intellectual disability and advocate for hiring people and for inviting people with disability in to talk to companies. We always love you, coming on cheddar and shining a light on all this mary mary Davis, the ceo of special olympics, and go to we challenge you dot org to sign the inclusion pledge.