Latest / Podcasts By Donna Jodhan / Remarkable World Commentary Episode #91: Ask Advocate Donna

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Remarkable World Commentary Episode #91: Ask Advocate Donna · Podcasts By Donna Jodhan

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  Podcast Commentator: Greetings, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA invites you to listen to
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  her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary.
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  Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts,
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  insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners.
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  Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids,
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  especially kids with disabilities.
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  Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach,
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  dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur,
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  law graduate, and podcast commentator.
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  She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge,
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  skills, and expertise in access, technology and information.
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  As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles,
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  she just wants to make things better than possible.
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  Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your host for my solo solo podcast of Ask
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  Donna or Ask Advocate Donna.
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  For the month of May. This is my second solo podcast for this month.
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  Ask advocate Donna, and I'm happy to be here with you and want to start off with one of my
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  favorite quotes. Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you.
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  Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.
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  This is really one of my favorite quotes.
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  I Want to start off with my word game.
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  I want to thank those of you who have commented on my word game and on my Ask
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  Advocate Donna, monthly episodes or monthly podcasts.
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  Thank you very much. And don't forget to contact me at Donna
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  jordan@gmail.com. That's bonnajodhan@gmail.com.
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  Okay, so let's start off with our word game.
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  And most of the time, or a lot of the time, advocates are faced
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  with these two alternatives to be polite or to be impolite.
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  What does this all mean?
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  Well, most of the time I choose the polite alternative.
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  But sometimes I'm awfully tempted to use the impolite alternative,
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  and I will tell you that this does not, most of the time,
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  does not bring you brownie points for light is when you know that something is right or
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  something may not be right, but on the.
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  On the whole, for light could be.
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  When something is not absolutely correct when being spoken by someone else,
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  but you're too polite to say this to them.
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  Instead, you choose the polite route.
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  Sometimes when someone says something to you,
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  you can't help yourself because you know how wrong it is,
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  or incorrect or inappropriate it is.
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  So what you do is you become impolite.
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  And I would say, let's choose the polite route as opposed to the impolite route,
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  because very often the polite route keeps you in the minds of those around you.
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  The impolite route. Sure, it does the same, but for where is the polite
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  route? Keeps you in the mind of others in a positive manner.
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  The impolite route does not.
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  My next pair of words for your consideration today is proactive versus inactive.
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  And very often in the field of advocacy, we need to consider if we want to be
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  proactive and that means take the bull by the horns and run with it.
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  Become the one who leads by example.
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  An inactive means that you do nothing.
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  You just depend on others to push you along, or you depend on others to develop the
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  solutions or to develop the suggestions.
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  And all you do is just to follow.
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  So proactive means to lead.
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  Inactive means to follow.
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  And in the world of an advocate, we need to decide which best suits us.
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  Becoming a leader has its heartaches, becoming its leader.
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  A leader has its joys and it has its fulfillment.
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  But it doesn't come easy.
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  It comes at a very high cost because you put yourself out there.
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  So, you know, whenever criticisms are made or whenever the going gets tough,
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  the tough get going. Inactive means and it's not always viewed as being negative,
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  but most times I think it is because you're not taking the initiative,
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  you're simply sitting back and allowing others to do the work.
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  But it's our choice. Always proactive or inactive.
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  Okay, now I want to share my stories with you for this month.
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  I have three stories to share with you and the title to the first story.
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  And it all has to do with advocacy.
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  It has to do with a cell phone store that robbed a lady with a disability.
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  Okay, what happened here is that the lady went into the cell phone store in order to
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  purchase a new cell phone.
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  The customer rep or customer agent dealing with her,
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  know darn well that she was a person with a disability.
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  But instead of advising this lady to choose the best cell phone that suited her needs
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  slash requirements, they deliberately took the path to mislead this lady.
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  Okay. So this was lady.
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  Her name was Emma. Emma went into a cell phone store in her neighborhood.
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  She wanted to buy the most recent or most recognized cell phone.
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  The most modern, but the most.
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  Oh, gosh. I'm using losing my words here.
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  But she wanted to buy the latest cell phone, and so she approached the agent at the desk,
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  told them her story, told them what she was looking for,
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  And he took her information, pretended to be nice to her,
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  smiled with her, told her that he would, you know,
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  choose the best cell phone for her.
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  But what he did, in essence, was chose the best cell phone that the store
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  had to offer, never really paying attention to what Emma wanted.
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  So what did Emma do? Well, Emma went off when she went home,
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  and her husband told her that she.
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  He felt that she had been misled.
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  Emma went straight to the head office of this cell phone store and lost her complaint.
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  At first she was listened to, but then it appeared that the head office was
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  not really going to do anything.
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  So Emma decided to be a bit bold and she went off.
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  Before she did this, she told them that she would be going to Facebook and pleading her
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  case, and she would be going to other social media outlets and reporting the incident.
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  Her husband went back and took photos of the store and of the same agent that was in the
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  store that had dealt with Emma.
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  Okay, so what does this all mean?
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  What is advocacy all about?
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  Advocacy is when one really believes that one has to advocate for something that has not
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  been dealt with appropriately and properly.
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  And this is what Emma did.
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  How to get involved with advocacy.
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  You get involved with advocacy by enlisting the help and support of other people,
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  and Emma enlisted the support of her husband,
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  and later on, she enlisted the support of her children and their friends,
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  and they all put together an action plan for Emma first to go to the head office
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  and then to put this thing on social media.
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  When does one get involved in advocacy?
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  One gets involved in advocacy.
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  When again, if there is a need.
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  And why does one get involved in advocacy?
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  It's all about trying to right a wrong, or bringing what has happened to the notice
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  of a wider circle of readers and listeners?
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  Okay, let's go to my second story of the day.
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  All right. This is all about a bakery that refused to serve an autistic kid.
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  And this was submitted to us by a very distraught mother.
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  Her name was Beth, and her son's name was Brent.
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  She had sent Brent with the with a list of what she wanted from the bakery.
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  And with the appropriate cash that was needed to purchase what she wanted.
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  Because Beth had been a regular customer at this bakery.
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  So Brent came into the bakery.
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  They knew who he was because he often, you know,
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  went to the bakery with his mom.
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  But because today he was on his own, they refused,
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  downright refused to serve him, saying that,
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  you know, they didn't want to serve him because he didn't know what he was saying or
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  doing. Despite written instructions given to him by his mum.
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  And he had shown it to the cashier and to the attendants for a better word at the bakery
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  counter. But they refused, downright refused.
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  But first, poor Brent did not know what to do.
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  But then, when he realized that no one was going to help him or serve him,
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  he ran back home and told his mum and his mum went with him to the bakery and confronted
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  the cashier and the attendant and asked them why did they not serve his or her son,
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  despite the fact that she had given him written instructions as to what she wanted.
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  Of course, they did not come out right and say,
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  oh, because your son is autistic.
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  No, they would never do that.
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  So. What did she do? She did something a little bit different.
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  She went off and she started to attract the attention of those in the bakery,
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  telling them what had happened.
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  Some of them listened attentively.
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  Some of them did more than being attentive in that they saw what the bakery had done to
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  Brent, and so she decided to chat with them and decided to tell them her side of the
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  story. It wasn't easy.
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  It was very painful for Beth, but she decided to persevere.
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  And I think after an hour or two, according to her account to us,
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  she did start to get somewhere with this bakery.
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  And she reasoned with them.
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  She used calm, a calm composure to deal with them,
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  and it worked. So I ask you the question, what is advocacy all about?
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  In this case, advocacy is standing up for your rights when you think you have been
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  wronged. And in this case, Beth honestly felt that Brent,
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  her son, her autistic son, was wronged, took a lot out of her to do it.
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  But those around her, those who decided to support her,
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  were very, very true and very, you know, Determined to see justice being
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  done here. The bakery listened.
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  The bakery admitted that they were wrong, which not many people would do,
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  but they did. So this is what advocacy is all about.
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  When you decide to stand up for something you feel has not been,
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  you know, the right thing that has been done.
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  How do you get involved in it?
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  By enlisting the help of others, which is what Beth did with those around her
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  in the bakery. How do you do it again?
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  That's what you do. You enlist the help of others.
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  So you have your what?
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  You have your how you have your win.
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  And when is when you think something needs to be addressed.
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  Why my advocacy? Again, they're all similar in reasoning.
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  But why you got involved is because you want something to be right in.
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  Okay. So this is what happened with Beth and her autistic son Brett,
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  and the bakery in their neighborhood.
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  And the third story for this month is this.
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  We have a babysitter who refused to help the little toddler because the toddler was blind.
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  Now, this was the first time that this particular babysitter was coming in to do
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  some babysitting for the parents of this child who was blind,
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  and his two siblings who were sighted, the babysitter put the sighted
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  children to bed. But when it came to the undecided one,
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  okay, the babysitter said or refused to help.
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  And despite, you know appeals from the two sighted siblings,
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  she refused to help the sibling who was blind.
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  She said she was not being paid to help anyone like this.
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  Now the two sighted siblings were the older ones,
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  one was ten and one was eight.
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  And the babysitter? Sorry.
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  The. Sibling who was blind or the child who was blind was three years old.
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  So you had a ten year old, an eight year old and a three year old?
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  Well, what did these two older ones do?
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  They kept saying to her, you have to help or sister get or brother.
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  Sorry. Get into bed. She kept refusing.
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  So finally the older sibling decided to call their parents and tell their parents what was
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  going on. This is advocacy in its truest form,
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  from a young person, a young so-called advocate who probably,
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  you know, would not think that they were being an advocate,
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  but they just felt that their youngest sibling needed help.
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  So, you know, it had to be given.
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  Parents rushed home and confronted the babysitter,
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  and the babysitter said the same thing.
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  She was not being paid to help someone who she felt could help themselves.
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  So they had a chat, a very interesting chat, and at the end of it all the babysitter left
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  And the parents did not pay the babysitter because they said that they had told the
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  babysitter beforehand that that there was a child with a vision impairment,
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  but the babysitter refused.
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  She left. She was not paid.
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  She went home and she told her parents.
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  So now we have a confrontation between the parents of the child who has a vision
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  impairment, and the parents who had a babysitting age child who refused to
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  help a blind person or child that they were supposed to babysit.
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  Well, a few days later, the parents all got together.
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  Along with this, the children of the parents who had the vision impaired child and the
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  parents of the babysitter.
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  Thank goodness this was a reasonable sit down chat and the child of or the babysitter was
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  spoken to by her parents and told that it did not matter what it was,
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  but she should have helped the kid or the child with the vision impairment.
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  It all worked out, thank goodness.
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  So what is advocacy in this case?
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  Advocacy is when everybody got together to hash out an incident that took place.
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  Why was it necessary? Because one set of parents wanted the other set of parents to
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  know that this was not right and why it was not right.
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  How did advocacy take place when they all got together.
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  And when this advocacy take place, it takes place when something needs to be
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  addressed. Okay, those are my stories for this month for the Ask Advocate Donna feature
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  for the month of May. Thank you very much, everyone for tuning in.
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  Please, if you have any stories to share, send them to me at Donna jordan@gmail.com.
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  That's donnajodhan@gmail.com.
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  Take care everybody, and I will see you next month.
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  Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at Donna jordan@gmail.com.
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  Until next time.