Dan on the set of his podcast during an interview.
Daniel Smrokowski News, Special Voices: An award-winning column covering special needs stories, SSIGMJournal

IDPD: Help advance inclusion every day

Dan on the set of his podcast during an interview.
Dan on the set of his podcast during an interview.

By Daniel Smrokowski   

Columnist | Column: Special Voices | Originally appeared on SpecialOlympics.org 

Listen to an unabridged audio recording of this article:

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On a cool midsummer evening, I sat to the right of my mom just behind the mosh pit at the Northerly Island pavilion in Chicago during the 50th Anniversary Concert for Special Olympics. It was a midsummer night’s dream—Global Inclusion as it should be. In the sold-out crowd were concert-goers I recognized from Trinidad-Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Australia, and Brazil, all in a celebratory state of mind. Throughout the concert, tons of people were approaching me to say hello. Midway through the concert, two young women seated behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “We don’t mean to be rude, but are you a celebrity?”

So many people were approaching me simply because they recognized me as part of our Special Olympics community, a community that is large and inclusive. One that I am proud and grateful to be part of. Not that celebrity is a goal for those of us with intellectual disabilities, but instead the goal is being seen, accepted, and appreciated by the general community. In other words, being included.

I know I am part of this global Special Olympics community because people know my name. I know I’m part of the Special Olympics community because people show confidence in me. They work unified with me. They challenge me to become a better me. And I know I’m part of the Special Olympics community when people countdown to celebrate with me. “Speaking” of me, I’m going to quote a few people in this piece talking about me—not because I want to “blow my own trumpet” but rather because I want to illustrate that the inclusion of me—and all people with intellectual disabilities like me—is having a positive impact, breaking stereotypes and misconceptions, and replacing them with reality.

My goal for Special Olympics is that our community gets so inclusive that it encompasses the whole world. Anyone is potentially part of the Special Olympics community. We want the lines to blur between Special Olympics and all the rest of the world.

Global inclusion is a pioneering idea that is much needed today in a world that is so divided. As we both celebrate the United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities with the 2018 theme of “empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” and countdown to our 2019 Summer World Games in Abu Dhabi, I challenge everyone to up your game For global inclusion.

This is an inclusion revolution that everyone from youth, educators, health professionals, policy-makers, employers, entertainers, and content creators can join to include more of those of us with intellectual disabilities.

Youth—Please share our #ChooseToInclude movement, join a Unified Sports team, or advocate for Unified programming in your schools. 

Young people have the power to transform lives. Youth have the power to be unified. Today’s youth are the Unified generation and are the future of Special Olympics. I hope every young person across the globe will join our inclusion revolution and will challenge every person, regardless of boundaries, religion, politics, race, or ability level to advocate for Unified programs within their schools. I hope that every school across the world will incorporate Unified programs into their school’s curriculum. I challenge the youth today to up their game for global inclusion.

Educators—Please advocate for Unified programs in your schools and make inclusion a priority. Teach the value of inclusion to the next generation of leaders, a unified generation. 

I challenge every educator to make inclusion a priority in their curriculum. When educators from early childhood to elementary to middle schools to high schools and universities teach the value of inclusion, we can break down barriers and truly heal a divided world.

I challenge educators to up their game for global inclusion.

Health professionals & Policy-makers—Please make inclusive healthcare, clinical practice, curricula, and policies the standard across the world. Get started today by volunteering with Healthy Athletes.

Health professionals answer the calling to take care of all of us. Our doctors and policy-makers can to choose to include by pushing for the basic human right to healthcare. I challenge every health professional and policy-maker to advocate for inclusive healthcare and make inclusive policies the standard across the world. Once you get started by volunteering with our Healthy Athletes program you’ll see firsthand the power that inclusion has to change lives. Health professionals and policy-makers will see the unconditional love, joy, and determination that those of us with intellectual disabilities bring to the world.

I challenge every health professional and policy-maker to up their game for global inclusion.

Employers—Please hire people with intellectual disabilities. We make great employees at every level of your organization and businesses. 

This is simple idea that should not be seen as charity. It should not be an act of charity to hire us. It’s the right business decision. Employers have the ability, when they hire those of us with intellectual disabilities, to treat us just like anyone else—as truly capable of working alongside our colleagues without disabilities.

The appalling unemployment rate for those of us with intellectual disabilities needs to change. Campaigns like Best Buddies International’s “I’m In to Hire” campaign, their Jobs program, Creative Spirit’s job placements, and Bitty & Beau’s Coffee aspire to change the world of work. Similarly to these work initiatives, my goal through my columns and podcasts, heard by thousands of global viewers, is to empower the voices of those of us with special needs so the world can better incorporate our abilities.

I challenge every organization, company, and business across the globe to hire at least one person with disabilities in their workforce. Within the coming year of 2019, I challenge everyone to up their game for global inclusion by hiring at least one person with intellectual disabilities.

Entertainment, Pop Culture, and Content Creators—Please include more people with intellectual disabilities in front of and behind the scenes. 

Entertainment producers, pop culture celebrities, and content creators need to see that those of us with disabilities bring extraordinary gifts in front of and behind the camera or microphone.

Ten years ago, I created Special Chronicles, a nonprofit platform giving a voice to my fellow Special Olympics athletes and to others with disabilities. Through podcasts, stories, and public speaking, I am helping create understanding for each of us. In giving my fellow Special Olympics athlete leaders opportunities to present their stories, I’ve motivated them to communicate their stories to a worldwide audience.

Countless viewers and contributors have told me that they have been empowered to pursue their own dreams. Viewers have told me that they see the unconditional love, gifts, joy, acceptance, and inclusion that those of us with intellectual disabilities bring to people everywhere.

Those of us with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the United States—but we are the least seen in the entertainment, pop culture, and digital content media platforms.

We can look to a few examples to learn how to include those of us with intellectual disabilities in front of and behind the camera or microphone.

Within the Entertainment platforms, I wholeheartedly recommend you watch popular shows like Born This Way (A&E), Speechless (ABC), The Good Doctor (ABC), 9-1-1 (Fox), and Kelly’s Hollywood (produced by Brian Donovan). 

Within popular culture, I highly recommend you follow celebrities like actor John C. McGinley (@JohnCMcGinley), Olympic swimmer & our Global Ambassador Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps), actor Micah Fowler (@MicahDFowler), Jon Murray and Bunim-Murray Productions, and journalist Maria Shriver (@MariaShriver).

Within digital content platforms, I wholeheartedly recommend you follow mystg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud platform. I also recommend you follow a few of my fellow Special Olympics athlete leaders who also contribute to Special Chronicles: Daina (SO Wisconsin) and Jose (SO Illinois). And, finally a few of my fellow Sargent Shriver International Global Messengers such as Hanna (SO Colorado), Emanuelle (SO Brazil), and Brina (SO Philippines).

This is why I challenge every entertainment producer, actor, celebrity, and content creator to up their game for global inclusion.

Just as in the past decade I’ve chronicled my fellow Special Olympics athletes’ journeys as a study in empowerment, I hope you will join us in doing more to advance a world of full inclusion for me and for you too.

Daniel Smrokowski was born three-and-a-third months premature and was diagnosed with learning disabilities and a severe language disorder. He is an award-winning veteran podcaster, columnist, and an acclaimed advocate telling disability stories. Daniel is the founder of Special Chronicles, a nonprofit media platform that gives respect and voice to people with special needs. Daniel is also involved as an athlete, global messenger, & board member with Special Olympics Illinois. Daniel is currently a Sargent Shriver International Global Messenger with Special Olympics, traveling the world sharing his story and encouraging folks to join the Inclusion Revolution Movement on behalf of his fellow 5.6 million Special Olympics athletes. Come join us atwww.stg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud.

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Daniel Smrokowski News, Special Voices: An award-winning column covering special needs stories

Reimagining special needs for better opportunities

SpecialVoices_ColumnHeadshotBy Daniel Smrokowski
Columnist | Column: Special Voices

Many self-advocates in our special needs community, myself included, are redefining what it means to have special needs. This week, as we begin a new year, let us reflect on what it means to have special needs and what redefinition of special needs can mean to the mainstream community. Together, as we look at the state of special needs, we can redefine new opportunities, and enhance current ones, helping to bring full inclusion to our community. Eliminating division and decreasing challenges within our community will mean the ability for us to dream and to support each other’s dreams.

Twenty-eight years ago was a different time filled with much frustration for those of us with special needs. In my early years, I had lots of developmental therapies that helped me develop and, to some degree, avoid frustration in my communication. I, like others my age, didn’t have access to as many resources as are available today to help us with communication. One therapy that I had included taught me a small amount of American Sign Language (ASL). According to my mom, there seemed to be only a few professionals that were using ASL at the time with hearing children. They were signing only minimally and not encouraging the families to embrace ASL fully.

In my early years, “we didn’t realize that, had we as parents used sign language with you, even though you could hear, we could have helped you avoid much frustration and helped you develop faster,” said my mom Linda.

If only 28 years ago there had been an innovation such as Signing Time, then my family could have learned ASL alongside me and thus helped me avoid so much frustration with communication. Signing Time, a video series promoting ASL to eliminate communication barriers, was created 15-years ago by Emmy-nominated host Rachel Coleman.

Today, after a quarter-century since my early years, times are slowly making some progress. As many parents receive a diagnosis of a disability when their baby is born, doctors tend to present this as tragic. It is, of course, a very scary time for families. Many times, families within our special needs community spend months or more in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), or the “Baby ER” as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes says in his book of the same name.

Often in the special needs community we end up divided among all the various types of disability diagnoses: from the deaf community to the Down syndrome community and everything in between. This division within our community can originate from a lack of understanding. This misunderstanding of those of us with special needs can then lead to a lack of acceptance and exclusion within society. In my early years I dealt with tons of frustration in communicating my wants and needs and personality.

Today we can point to examples of the progress that bring people together. Through the work done by nonprofits like my own Special Chronicles, nationally like Signing Time and Miss Amazing, and, internationally like Special Olympics, positive change in the disability community is redefining what it means to be diagnosed with special needs. Today, we are seeing those of us with special needs in the workplace; at your local grocery store, coffee shop, and even as a newspaper columnist. Through movements like Special Olympics and Special Chronicles, we create a culture of understanding that leads to acceptance and inclusion for people of all abilities.

As future families have children with special needs, “it is going to be different,” said Diane Compton, mother to a daughter with Down syndrome. “Maybe hard times, but it doesn’t have to be a tragedy.”

An innovation that has made a tremendous impact and eliminated communication barriers for Diane’s daughter, Erin, was Signing Time.

“What I love about our Signing Time events, they’re unlike anything anywhere else,” said Coleman. “Because even as families who have children with special needs, we divide ourselves up like ‘oh I’m going to the deaf stuff or we’re going to the Down syndrome Buddy Walk’ but we still divide ourselves up.”

This year, we must redefine opportunities for people with special needs. One can do so in innovative and creative ways. In redefining opportunities we create a culture where diversity is not just appreciated, it’s celebrated. Amy Wright, in Wilmington, N.C., started Bitty & Beau’s Coffee, a coffee shop that employs over 40 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

This unique coffee shop is “pouring it forward” as their advertising says and is evident by the over 10-million views video produced by Southern Living magazine and posted on Facebook.

Special Chronicles, a nonprofit, new media network that I created to give respect and voice to people with special needs, has redefined what it means to have special needs. In creating a media platform that reaches over 38,000 viewers in over 85 countries, I am redefining opportunities not just for myself but many others across our nation as contributors and on-air personalities.

“Full inclusion means the ability to dream and to support each other’s dreams and to dream big,” said Compton about Special Chronicles.

Although we had come a long way before the Americans with Disabilities Act when those with special needs were hidden away and institutionalized, our work must continue. This is especially true in light of news of possible attitudes of President-Elect Trump. We must create more understanding and education about what it means to be diagnosed with disabilities which will lead to more employment of those of us with disabilities.

Join me and let’s redefine what it means to have special needs. Together, we can create full inclusion by supporting the ability to dream big.

Daniel Smrokowski was born three-and-a-third months premature and was diagnosed with learning disabilities and a severe language disorder. He is an award-winning columnist covering special needs stories. Daniel is the founder of Special Chronicles, a pioneering nonprofit new media network that gives respect and voice to people with special needs. Daniel is also involved as an athlete and global messenger with Special Olympics Illinois. Come join us at www.stg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud.

Editor’s Note: This Special Voices column originally appeared in the January 11, 2017 issue of The Bugle newspapers and is Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved. Print/E-Edition (PDF) | TheMighty.com

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Daniel Smrokowski News, Special Voices: An award-winning column covering special needs stories

Pride on Parade

SpecialVoices_ColumnHeadshotDisability Pride Parade to celebrate special needs community
July 23

By Daniel Smrokowski
Columnist | Column: Special Voices

On July 23, members of the community will come together to celebrate the 13th annual Disability Pride Parade in Chicago. This year’s theme is “Continuing the Drive: Inclusion Matters.”

The parade is a day for the community to come together and celebrate those with and without special needs. It’s a day where we can come together to include those of us with differences. It’s a day where we can accept people for who they are and change attitudes to appreciate the uniqueness in each person.

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Disability Pride Parade with my alma mater, Roosevelt University, marching with the Academic Success Center’s disability services office.

In addition to our group, there were approximately 60 other organizations from access living groups to other therapeuticandsupportiveorganizations for those with special needs walking in the parade.

As our group marched in the parade, we all wore bright green T-shirts with the words “Label Clothes, Not People” displayed on the front. On the back of our shirts was the letter “R” for Roosevelt University and “Academic Success Center.” I personally feel much gratitude towards Roosevelt and towards the embracing support of the Academic Success Center during my years as a student and beyond.

The Disability Pride Parade was “a great day of community, ability and joyfulness for who people are,” said Nancy Litke, director of the Academic Success Center at Roosevelt University. “To celebrate the lives of people with and without disabilities but mostly to showcase the ability side and how we are a better world with more diversity.”

As a community, we can truly come together and be proud for the abilities and joy that those of us with special needs bring to our community.

This year, let us remember how as a community we can celebrate the abilities that those of us with special needs bring to the world.

Join us at this year’s Disability Pride Parade to celebrate inclusion in our community. The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. July 23 at 401 S. Plymouth Court in Chicago.

Daniel Smrokowski was born three-and-a- third months premature and was diagnosed with learning disabilities and a severe language disorder. He is an athlete and global messenger with Special Olympics Illinois on the Southeast Association for Special Parks and Recreation team. Daniel is the founder of Special Chronicles nonprofit new media company, a pioneering network that gives respect and voice to people with special needs. Come join us at www.stg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud.

Editor’s Note: This Special Voices column originally appeared in the July 6, 2016 issue of The Bugle newspapers and is Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved. Print/E-Edition (PDF) | Reprinted on The Mighty

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Daniel Smrokowski Special Voices: An award-winning column covering special needs stories

Down Syndrome Awareness Day celebrates abilities, overcoming challenges

SpecialVoices_ColumnHeadshotDowners Grove South student musician David Raineri recently played Carnegie Hall

By Daniel Smrokowski
Columnist | Column: Special Voices

My friend and fellow athlete in Special Olympics Illinois, David Raineri, 16, of Downers Grove, sat one day after school with his legs outspread and a baritone horn upright on his lap. He was practicing a well-known Christmas song, “Angels We Have Heard On High,” for his school’s band.

DavidRaineriandParents_ByDanielSmrokowski
David, wearing his silver medal from the Special Olympics Illinois 2015 State Basketball Tournament, hugs his parents, Wally and Don. (Photo By Daniel Smrokowski)

David is a teen just like any other typically developing teen his age. The quality that makes him different is that he was born with Down syndrome.

This past March 21, we celebrated World Down Syndrome Awareness Day, an annual day where we learn to see Down syndrome, and other special needs, as a gift, and we learn to focus on an individual’s abilities.

People with special needs are a vital part of their families and bring an added dose of challenges.

“Aside from the day-to-day challenges of David having to work harder at things than other children, we really haven’t treated him any different than our other children,” said Don Raineri, David’s father.

Similar to David, I too have had to work harder than other peers my age, and my parents treated me just as they have my younger sisters.

David Raineri, 16, stand with me in his home after competing at the 2015 State Basketball Tournament for Special Olympics Illinois.
David Raineri, 16, stand with me in his home after competing at the 2015 State Basketball Tournament for Special Olympics Illinois. (Photo By Daniel Smrokowski

Even though David and I have different special needs labels and face somewhat different challenges, we both are men who have achieved many accomplishments in life— from competing in Special Olympics Illinois to playing a musical instrument.

David plays the baritone; I have played the guitar.

David has competed in horseback riding, basketball and karate; I have competed in aquatics, basketball and softball. David is an altar server at Holy Trinity Catholic Parish in Westmont; I am a lector at the same parish.

On the weekend of March 13, David competed at the State Basketball tournament for Special Olympics Illinois with his high school team – “D99 Hoops.” Although David and his team received a silver medal, winning is not the primary focus of the competition, as it is for professional sports and many levels of amateur sports.

For David’s family, and other fans for Special Olympics, it’s pure joy to watch the competitions.

“Anytime you can see the athletes get out there and try so hard and play so hard and support each other not just on their team but on the other teams,” Don Rainer said. “When someone falls on the basketball court, everyone rushes to help the person up.”

For David, his favorite part of competing is “when the crowds cheers for me and my friends,” he told me.

The best part for our families and friends is to celebrate the many abilities that we do have.

“The greatest part of having a child with Down syndrome [or other special needs] is celebrating all of the milestones achieved,” said Don.

David’s family did just that this past month when David had the opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He, and one other person with Down syndrome, also from Downers Grove South High School, performed alongside their peers.

“It was really an awesome time,” said Wally, David’s mother.

This is a perfect example of how they are playing unified, a concept from Special Olympics that encourages people with and without disabilities to play alongside each other.

My friend Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics Inc. worldwide, advocates for people to play unified—both in sports and in other avenues of our lives.

“We can win the battle against humiliation and play unified to teach respect to the world over,”

Tim said in an email regarding the March Special Voices column.

Join me in celebrating the inspiring accomplishments that those of us with special needs achieve every day. To listen to an interview with David and his parents, visit www.stg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud. To view a multimedia version of David’s story, visit the Special Chronicles YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJQ6vhxFjfc&feature=youtu.be

Daniel Smrokowski is an Athlete and Global Messenger (public speaker) with Special Olympics Illinois on the Southeast Association for Special Parks and Recreation (SEASPAR) team. He is also the Founder of Special Chronicles nonprofit new media Company, a pioneering network that gives respect and voice to people with special needs. Come join us at: stg-specialchronicles-staging.kinsta.cloud.

Editor’s Note: This Special Voices Column originally appeared in the April 1, 2015 issue of the Bugle Newspapers and is Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved.   Print/E-Edition (PDF)

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