Inclusion
Legacy Project
Mike Carr
Disability does not define a life; Mike Carr clearly demonstrated that his life was not defined by his disability. Although Mike was paralyzed at a young age, he still enjoyed a successful career with a high-tech company in Seattle where both his technical skills and leadership were highly valued. Mike was a role model to so many. He was a strong advocate for the power of inclusion and equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities.
The legacy project in his name was created to provide opportunities for children with disabilities in Ethiopia, the birth country of one of his sons. Children with disabilities there do not lack talent or drive. What they too often lack, however, are the tools needed to develop these talents and to apply that drive. Education remains the key to providing those tools. .
The goal of the legacy project is to increase awareness of the educational disparities of Ethiopian children with disabilities and to increase educational opportunities for these children so they can become the role models of the future that Mike Carr was during his lifetime. As part of this project, we launched an inclusion series within our OHBD Ready Set Go Books Project that features with kids and adults with different abilities. See below We want all kids to get the chance to see themselves in books.
Read more about Mike Carr's life and the tremendous positive effect he had on those he cared for on our blog here.
Addis Guzo Collaboration
Addis Guzo has been collaborating with OHBD for several years and receives numerous donations of children's books from OHBD´s Ready Set Go series. They use them in a number of ways:
- actively include the donated books as part of children's therapy.
- copies are available for use in their small library.
- Families can also take these books home so that the whole family- parents, siblings and all- can benefit from them.
Addis Guzo leadership also provides invaluable consulting on the Mike Carr series books and is spreading their use to other organizations including Hope for Korah. From Addis Guzo Leadership: “OHBD's very special Mike Carr Legacy Project focuses on raising awareness of the need for inclusivity in Ethiopia, specifically related to children and adults with disabilities. The aim of the series is to help the reader understand that disability does not define a life. The books in this collection were created to provide opportunities for children with disabilities. Within the pages of the Mike Carr books, differences are celebrated in a variety of ways.”
Since adding OHBD Ready Set Go books into the programming at Addis Guzo, two Addis Guzo employees became motivated to write and are now authors of Mike Carr books. Additionally, a book based on the women in the handicraft workshops, Leftovers, and another one inspired by the wheelchair basketball program, Can I Play?, have been written and published. One the illustrations from a third book, The Language of Dance, was inspired by the Addis Guzo dance program.
