"I so much want to learn and develop, so why is it so hard?!"
Shalom,
My name is Or Bass. I am a 22 years old and from Petach Tikveh.
I am learning disabled.
I've been asked to write a one page paper that will explain to you, a member of the media, a little about learning disabilities, about Nitzanei Mehu"t and their influence, and about the struggle which is forming amongst the learning disabled for their rights in society, academics, the army, in places of work and the government. And this is not easy...
It's not easy to put 22 years of frustration down on one page, but just to demonstrate the problem for you, I request that you close your eyes for a moment and imagine: imagine that you're an intelligent boy, talented, social, but you're not successful in bringing all of these traits to actuality, you can't read - because the words and letters get confused and run together on the page, you can't write a shopping list for the market - because the pencil breaks from the pressing of your fingers, and what you are able to write is illegible and you don't even understand your own handwriting yourself...imagine that you have no idea how much tip you have to leave at a restaurant, because you have no idea how to calculate it...and even a calculator won't help...imagine that you have to sit to write a paper, and you don't manage to sit for a moment to concentrate because the refrigerator is making noise, if you managed to sit down at all, finished?
So, now you can imagine the frustration that me, and others like me, experience every day, at least a little bit of it. I'm not asking that you understand because there is no chance that you could, but at least you should know how the feeling of "waking up each morning and bangin your head in the wall".
Now, you know how much the humiliation and embarrassment are unpleasant. Think about when you, an intelligent person, need to beg in order to get accepted to an academic institution, experiencing repeated rejections from places of work, and meriting astonished glares when you can't manage to sit down in a chair for more than 5 minutes, and mainly being afraid, being afraid because you're not good enough, because you don't have the tools to deal with the real world, the competitive and judgmental world that always wants results, always wants to see products and isn't ready to take captives on the way. In us, the injured horses, simply shooting from the beginning, taking us out of the competition and we just have drag ourselves to get to the finish line, spitting up blood along the way.
And here is exactly where Nitzanei Mehu"t came into the picture at the Kibutzim Seminar College. We've arrived, each one with his frustrations and disabilities, in order to receive for once an opportunity to fit in, to try to succeed where we always failed, without anyone judging, without anyone pressuring. And this desire is what united the people; it's what turned Nitzanei Mehu"t into an elite and united unit. The love and closeness that developed between us was simply amazing and it was like a microcosm within the modern, alienated society, 28 friends, partners in the fate of each other, everyone with a common vision and desire.
The excellent work and sensitivity of the staff of lecturers, who became very quickly and integral part of us, imparting us with learning skills and with a perfected ability of expressing emotions, they turned the preparatory course into a fascinating experience, in which we not only could learn statistics and learning strategies, but also take a part in sharing and creative workshops, and by such to get to know each other for real. The preparatory course changed something inside of us. It caused people to get to know themselves better, not to be afraid of the disability that accompanied them all of their lives, to be proud people, courageous and mainly victorious, believing that it's possible to change, both their personal lives and the face of society, that they're worth something and even more than that.
Mehu"t became our second home. The disability stopped defining us, and it's already stopped being the filter of everything we see.
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