The unified club at Orono has been very successful in creating campaigns to make the high school a better place to be around. There latest campaign called “Person first campaign” was discussed about in their last meeting on April 30 and it will be put in place around May 23. The main goal of this Campaign is to shift the focus from the disability of the person to who the person actually is on the inside.

Unified member Fisher Eiss said, “Not only does this end the stereotypical categorization of how kids with special needs are looked at, but it also gets people to learn more about these amazing kids.”

To better understand this, I’m going to make up a name and describe how you should and shouldn’t talk to kids who have special needs. The wrong way to do this is by saying,“This is my autistic friend Luke”. By saying this you are just using the label that of the disability to describe the person. You would never describe a person by saying this is my big nosed friend Luke. Instead of this you should say, “This is my friend Luke, he has autism.”

Senior Thomas Lecy said, “They’re just kids like everyone else, it just happens that they have special needs.”

A disability that someone may have does not define them for who they really are. By placing their name in front of the disability it shows that there is more meaning to the person other than their disability. You can participate in this campaign by following the right way to talk to people who have special needs and reminds others how to do it as well.