Live an Unconfined Live
An Unconfined Life is a quality life for all — free of radical angst, social exclusion, poverty and despair. A life in which people are free to be themselves, to offer their gifts and live a full life. Such a life includes but is not limited to a person with disabilities or “limitations”.
Vision: To humanize the disabled community.
Statistics
There are 8.38 million people with an intellectual or developmental disability in the United States.
90% of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are sexually and physically abused. Half of those individuals will experience abuse ten times or more in their lives.
The lack of accessible housing can make it difficult for people with disabilities to build relationships with their community.
In the United States, only 19.1% of people with developmental and intellectual disabilities are employed, compared to 61.8% for people without
26% of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States live in poverty.
A large percentage of wrongfully discharged veterans have service related disabilities that are not being treated for or serviced due to their discharge status.
Unconfined Life mission is to amplify the voices of individuals with disabilities and colorize this invisible population. We will fight against systemic ableism and for disability justice to bring awareness to an unheard and unseen community.
1. Every person’s life has inherent value and worth.
2. All people have the sacred right to be treated with dignity and respect.
3. Our community is better when individual members voluntarily take care of each other in a direct, personal, concrete way, in contrast to either not taking care of each other at all, or mostly doing it impersonally, indirectly, distantly, involuntarily, or on a paid basis.
4. For any conceivable kind of help that might be needed by an individual, there is someone willing to respond.
5. While there will always be people willing to engage themselves with a person in need, many more people would do so if they were personally challenged to do so.
6. More people will engage themselves if challenged to do so by people who are comfortable and confident in their role as challengers, and confident that there are people ready to respond to the challenge.
7. More people will respond to a challenge if they are offered the kind of engagement that appeals to them, and for which they are suited.
8. More people will respond to a challenge if they are confident they will receive support in their engagement when they need it.
9. There will be people who can be called forth into voluntary engagements with people in need even though they will not be compensated for it, their life is apt to be made harder for it, and they have no prior obligation to the person in need.
- We value relationships between people as vital connections that keep us safe and are a pathway toward obtaining the good things in life.
- We value a compassionate response to the lives and circumstances of our neighbors discovered through an empathetic lens.
- We value the gifts, talents, and concerns of all people and involve people from a wide range of different social and ethnic backgrounds.
- We value the courage of people that for any conceivable kind of help that might be needed by an individual, there is someone willing to respond.
- We value the work of Justice in recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must act to fix the imbalances.
- We value honesty and upholding strong moral principles in working with those who have been socially devalued, and in the stewardship of the organization.
- We value the consistent and everlasting journey of learning and understanding.
- We value innovation and creative ideas to respond to the issues of problems of individuals and our community.
- We value the importance of supporting each other at all levels, and value our connection with every part of the community.
WHAT WE DO
Building Unconfined Communities
Education and relationships are the key elements for a community to thrive. People with disabilities and those who are able-bodied live, work, and play better when they can understand and relate to each other. Both sides are missing out on the ability to experience true community. With the help of volunteers, sponsors, and donors, we hope to be a part of the solution.
Rooftop Allyships Matching
Though Rooftop Allyships is a biblical-based initiative, we are not an evangelizing organization. We do not encourage or discourage spiritual conversations. In Mark chapter 2, the story is about a man named Jesus visiting a local church. The whole community came out to see him, causing the church to have a huge overflow of people. One member of the community, with a limitation, did not have physical access to get in to see Jesus. It was too packed, making it impossible for him to get through or around the crowd. So, his friend decided to climb up on top of the roof, hoisted the man up, and lowered him through a hole in front of Jesus. This was the first and last time you see someone breaking a ceiling on the behalf of an individual with a disability. The world has been breaking glass ceilings on behalf of every people group other than the disabled community. Perhaps this is because it’s not a political movement, but a commandment and calling. Rooftop Allies are people who are active members of their community who chose to freely partner up with a disabled member of the community in order to help them gain access to the life they want to live.
Limitless app
As you can imagine, one of the most effective ways people with disabilities are continuing to be oppressed is through the advancement of social media. Social media has become the number one way to build a community in our society. However, most of these platforms do not provide the assistive technology needed for a person with a limitation to participate. Though we can never accommodate every disability, Unconfined Life is in the stages of developing a social media app that integrates the latest in adaptive technology. The “Limitless” app will be the first ever modifiable social media app with all of the latest assistive technology integrated. Developing, maintaining, and updating the platform will require financial support.
Fighting Against Systemic Ableism
Unfortunately, systemic ableism is so ingrained in society that it is unrecognizable. Unlike racism, sexism, culturalism, and sexual identity discrimination, ableism is not seen as a human rights injustice issue, but in fact it is. Ableism is discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities, based on the idea that people without disabilities are superior. It can manifest in social habits, laws, institutions, and practices that assume people with disabilities are less capable, less valuable, or should have less autonomy. It becomes systemic ableism when there is a form of discrimination and prejudice that excludes people with disabilities from equal opportunity and full participation in society. We need our volunteers, sponsors, and donors to help us fight against injustice in the disabled community.
Our direct efforts to fight against ableism are:
- March – Developmental Disability Awareness Month and Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month
- Celebrating Disability Day – July 26th is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Anniversary
- October – National Disability Employment Month
- December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
- Spotlighting Those Who Are Pushed In Darkness (Podcast)
- Convert uninformed ableists to insightful allies through education on the disability community
- YouTube video library: what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and updated information on policy changes within the local, state, and federal communities
There are many ways to fight against systemic ableism, including:
- Educate yourself: Learn about ableism and how to refer to people with disabilities in a respectful way.
- Speak up: Call out ableist comments and explain why they are harmful.
- Advocate for accessibility: Make sure that physical spaces, communication formats, and transportation are accessible to people with disabilities.
- Hire and support people with disabilities: Employ people with limitations and provide professional development opportunities on disability and inclusion.
- Push politicians: Give disabled people a platform to share their experiences and influence policy changes.
- Support organizations: Support organizations that advocate for people with disabilities.
- Be aware of accessibility challenges: Consider how people with limitations might experience a space or activity.
- Ask how you can help: Ask people with disabilities how you can be supportive.
- Don’t assume: Don’t assume that people with limitations want to be able-bodied.
- Appoint a limitation champion in your organization.
- Set up a staff disability network.
- Have disability allies.
- Ensure managers understand their responsibilities.
- Encourage representation of people with limitations in the curriculum and learning materials.
- Ensure that the voice and choice of disabled individuals are included when developing policy.
- Being modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Support the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Exposing the Epidemic of Abuse in the Disability Community
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at heightened risk of abuse at all moments of their daily lives. Predators target people with intellectual disabilities because they know they are easily manipulated and will have difficulty testifying later. These crimes go mostly unrecognized, unprosecuted and unpunished, and the abuser is free to abuse again. Police and prosecutors are often reluctant to take these cases because they are difficult to win in court. Awareness must occur to stop this epidemic from continuing to spread. We are relying on our volunteers, sponsors, and donors to help us shed light on this issue.
We are hoping to shed some light on this dark epidemic by:
- Building a relationship with New Disabled South, The Natalie Project, & RAINN
- Hotline and support groups
- Sex education
Storytelling
Here are some additional ways to raise awareness about the epidemic of sexual and physical abuse in the disability community:
- Collaborate – Build relationships between disability organizations, domestic violence programs, sexual assault programs, and tribes.
- Empower survivors – Provide survivors with limitations the tools to report abuse and connect them to services.
- Improve access – Advocate for better sex education, curricula, resources, and for access to care and healing.
- Partner with people with disabilities – Tailor prevention efforts to be more accessible and relevant to people with disabilities.
- Raise awareness of the rate of abuse – The Natalie Project is a family-driven organization that raises awareness about the epidemic of sexual assault among people with intellectual and developmental limitations.
- Learn about disability justice – Disability Awareness Month is a time to learn about the history of disability justice.
- Develop trauma – informed facilities and services.
- Involve survivors with lived experience in designing services.
- Empower disabled people with knowledge about consent.
- Change misperceptions and prejudiced attitudes.
Coaching Wrongfully Discharged Veterans
Our wrongfully discharged veterans are those who have been left behind, forgotten about, and mistreated due to receiving a wrongful discharge status. Oftentimes they have a hidden disability caused by a traumatic experience while serving their country. These veterans have a lot of unanswered questions that they must answer. The biggest one is “What now?” We connect these veterans with a certified life coach to go through a one year “What Now?” Coaching Program. “What Now?” is a free coaching service that focuses on answering the questions needed to build stability in these wrongfully discharged veterans’ lives. Questions like:
- Why do you think you were wrongfully discharged?
- Have you talked to a JAG Officer about this issue?
- Is so, what now?
- If not, why not?
Every answer to these series of questions will steer these veterans in the direction of a secure future. In order to provide these veterans with free life coaching, we are counting on our volunteers, sponsors, and donors.
Additional ways to support these wrongfully discharged veterans is by getting them connected through:
- JAG Officer Connection – (Tully Rinckey) Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Tully put the firm on the map with a string of high-profile, landmark victories, and has assembled a team of military lawyers with proven histories of changing the military law landscape through knowledge and tenacity in all matters faced by service members, including but not limited to courts-martial, discharge upgrades, and Board of Correction issues.
- Affordable Housing Programs – The following are various avenues of getting information to have access to affordable housing for veterans:
- FMR = Fair Market Rent
- HAP = Housing Assistance Payment
- HCV = Housing Choice Voucher
- HUD = U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- HUD-VASH = Housing and Urban Development- Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing
- NSPIRE = National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate
- PHA = Public Housing Agency
- SSVF = Supportive Services for Veteran Families
- VA = U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Job Search Resources – There are hiring agencies we can direct our veterans to throughout the country.
- Counseling Services – We can direct our veterans to hospitals to provide psychiatric help specifically for veterans for a more specialized care and treatment plan.
- Aid in filling out government assistance paperwork.