A Better World for All: a poem by Stevie Wills
Stories | January 24, 2023 | Author: Stevie Wills, Community Education Officer, CBM Australia
Creating a #BetterWorldForAll starts with all of us
I’m excited to introduce to you my poem, A Better World for All.
It is a poem that reiterates CBM Australia’s vision for an inclusive world for all people with disabilities. When people with disabilities are fully included and able to fulfil their potential, everyone benefits. Ensuring inclusion requires the identification and removal of barriers to people with disabilities fully participating in their communities. People with disabilities living in poverty face immense barriers to inclusion. Twenty per cent of the world’s poorest people have some kind of disability. In developing countries, one in three children with disabilities do not attend school.
I am a performance poet. I have been writing for years. I’m aware that countless people have been moved by my writing and performing.
This poem emerged from an online course on writing and performing poetry that I took in 2021. Though I’m an established writer and performer, I knew I had more to learn. I needed to learn from successful artists. I wanted to grow in my craft. I have learnt an enormous amount and developed as an artist through online courses.
Building a better world for all, in which people with disabilities can fully participate, is a life-long mandate. If you have been investing in building inclusion into a community you will appreciate that it is a journey of continual learning.
The poetry course I forementioned entailed seven lessons. This poem emerged from the lesson about rhyming and writing a rap. This was not my forte! Not my style! And the videographic examples I found were not within my physical capabilities.
But I gave it a go. I followed the lesson and played around with it. I ended up with something I found worth working through to completion.
If you feel similarly unequipped and inexperienced regarding disability inclusion, then great! You can start from where you are. Start by learning about our work. Or dig into our Luke14 resources.
Wherever you feel you are on the path of building a better world for all, there’s a step, (or several different steps) ahead of you to take. It is a call worth participating in, because it’s one that benefits all.
A Better World for All
A better world for all.
A world where all
is accessible
For all, people.
What may be called
a tall call
would benefit all.
A world where
people with disabilities
have opportunities
to fully participate in their communities.
Enabling all to make contribution
benefits all.
This is a better world for all.
A world where
people dwell in equity
perceived with dignity
a gulf from reality
the reality I
bring to light
a spotlight
on the plight
of people with a disability
living in poverty
facing barriers to equity
within their community
to full participation
education
occupation
medical intervention
vaccination
sanitation.
Thus, the situation
People with a disability
more likely
to live in poverty
and people living in poverty
have less
access
to medical intervention
vaccination
vital public information
nutrition
sanitation
and this
increases the risk
of illness, infection
the acquisition
of disability.
Thus people in poverty
more likely
to live with disability
and people with a disability
more likely
to live in poverty.
This, the situation.
A persistent, unfair cycle
of poverty
and disability.
A better world for all
let us build
reducing barriers
removing barriers
build the inaccessible
physical
into the accessible
physical.
Remove each barrier
to wheelchair
access.
Provision
of variations
in forms of communication
But more insurmountable than stairs
are prejudice stares.
Rearrange the interior.
The densest of barriers
Attitude.
what we conclude
about disability
will eventuate
in how we relate
to people with disabilities
and their families.
It’s time for an interlude.
Check attitude
slide under microscope
to be reviewed.
For attitudes prelude
what it means to include
or exclude
A better world for all
let us build.
For this is the call.
Benefits all.
https://www.cbm.org.au/stories/a-better-world-for-all-poem-stevie-wills
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