Disability Presentation Reflection by Camila Pena

After our previous presentation, we were assigned to work again as a group in order to prepare a great presentation about a very controversial topic that most people tend to avoid talking about: disabilities. Our goal was to create an amazing presentation and materials about this topic, that could later be used in our incredible educational institution, which is Miami Dade College, for the purpose of celebrating the Disability Awareness Month. We were given two weeks to work on it, to prepare a PowerPoint presentation, a poster, a brochure, study guides, and an agenda. Together, as a group, we worked together during those long two weeks, splitting up information and workload, helping each other with the purpose of finishing in time, but also to achieve greatness.

As the group leader, I had many things and work to do. Besides completing my part of the work that was assigned to me, I had to watch over my group team members, help them if they need my help and answer any doubt they had. Fortunately, even though I lack many qualities that a leader requires to have, I was able to help them and together as a group we created a wonderful presentation about the disabilities that we assigned to us: Mobility and physical impairment, spinal cord disabilities, and brain disabilities.

Also, in order to cover all of these disabilities and being able to finish in time, our group was divided into three subgroups, which one of them took care of one disability and each member worked on their own part, according to their disability and group. My group members were Claudia and Adrian and our disability was brain disabilities, which I had a little bit of previous knowledge of, even if I did not know about that until I did my research on them.

How did I know about brain disabilities, you wonder? Well, my grandmother, the woman who raised me, suffers from a brain disorder called Parkinson disease. Parkinson disease is a degenerative disease that, over time, paralyzes parts of your body and causes constant shaking. My grandmother, after she had a stroke, was not able to move her right side very well and after a while, she lost all movement on that side. Unfortunately, everything went downhill, because her body starting to shake lightly. Very lightly, but just in a few months, her right arm, jaw, and right leg were unable to stop shaking at all.

After I researched about brain disabilities and their causes, which are the destruction of brain cells caused by brain disorders, I understood that my grandmother has a brain disability, even when my family and I still do not see it like that. To me, disabilities are just obstacles, but that does not mean that people with disabilities are not capable of doing the Same things we do, in fact, they are. They are, certainly, very capable and I admire them for that, especially my grandmother, one the strongest women I have ever met.