[Music]
NARRATOR: We’ve been here before. We must stick together. When disability rights are threatened, what gives you hope?
MAKENZIE: It’s the people. It is the people that continue to show up. Time after time, after time again. After pushback, after pushback. Not letting the changes of our political landscape get them down. It’s the hope. It’s the leading with love. It’s the belief in a greater humanity and just it’s truly the people that lead this work, that see each person as an individual human being for all that they are—beautiful, unique, their gifts despite the challenges, right? And are with people every step of the way. Those individuals, like the folks that work at MCD those are the people that give me hope to keep going. And, you know, we’re living in really uncertain times. So the more we come together in community, I think that energy is contagious. And, we just, we keep going. So thank you to all the advocates and the people, leaders across the state, who believe in a vision for a better Minnesota, and believe in humanity as we should all know it to be.
NIKKI: My other fellow disability members, because I know that when we’re together, we’re strong. And in times like this can feel very isolating. And so when I’m here at the State Fair, even though there’s people all around me, and it can be frustrating to move around as a disabled person and not run over people. I do feel hope because I can see all the disabled folks that are out more than they were when I was a little kid. And that’s because of the work that the Council on Disability has done. And all the great leaders that Minnesota has churned out year after year.
NARRATOR: We’ve been here before. We must stick together. Stay in touch via social media–Facebook–on our website at www.disability.state.mn.us, by phone at (651) 361-7800, or email council.disability@state.mn.us. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.