Disability & Sports Blog - Kashmira Sidhwa

 ~'Para'lympic~      Paralympic.  When you hear that word, what does it mean to you?   Do you think of the famous worldwide games or is there something else that you think of?   When hearing this word for the first time, I knew that it was the Olympic games but was created directly for the disabled so that they can train and participate as anyone else would in sporting events.   When I hear the prefix “para,” my mind directly goes to the word “paralyzed.”  Being paralyzed is one of the many disabilities that people have, except that it does not define the disabled community as a whole since other disabilities exist.   After further research, the prefix “para” means next to or beside, sort of like an assist.   Learning this, if you look at the Olympics and Paralympics side by side, the Paralympics are similar, however, are the games that need assistance.   In other words, the Paralympics are considered “parallel” to the Olympics, meaning they go hand in hand and mirror each othe

    P eople all over the world see disabled people in different lights, and although people like to use them as " inspiration ", the more proper (and preferred) term would be, " admiration ".   Disabled means one has a physical or mental condition affecting day-to-day abilities in the senses and body functions.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's  'Disability and Health Promotion' page, "61 million adults in the United States live with a disability" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022).  That is a huge chunk of people out of everyone and that is just in the United States alone.  Watching Stella Young's "I'm Not Your Inspiration" video made me view disabilities from a different point of view. I began to understand how disabled people should be respected and acknowledged for their accomplishments, and that they are not for people to get inspiration from.  Typically, one of the first word