Historic event aims to break barriers

From being a team of one in advocacy coordinator Iris Phillips’ basement during the COVID-19 pandemic, to having a staff and putting together a three-day conference focusing on special needs - a first in Kahnawake - Connecting Horizons has come a long way in educating about special needs and advocating for those that need it most in the community.

“It’s overwhelming. I don’t think I could actually find one particular word that will describe how this has been, not just for Connecting Horizons, but me personally,” said Phillips on Wednesday afternoon, the second of the three days the Breaking Barriers Inclusion Gathering was taking place at the Knights of Columbus.

Even with the weather preventing some booths from being set up in the Knights and providing a potential deterrent to visitors, Phillips said the first-ever special needs conference has been successful.

“We’ve had a lot of community support and invested parties have come,” said Phillips.

“We’re very, very happy, and we want to thank everyone for taking part, whether they volunteered, donated, or just came to listen in.”

That community support includes the event’s many sponsors, the organizations in the community that have been able to participate - the Caisse Populaire, Kahnawà:ke Shakotiia’takéhnhas Community Services (KSCS), Onkwata’karitáhtshera, and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK), to name a few.

“We’re very overwhelmed with the amount of support that we did get. We know that we are making an impact, not just Connecting Horizons, but all the other groups that are out there, that are working for special needs, they are actually making an impact, because this was something that people were able to come to and learn something,” said Phillips.

Kim Mayo was one community member who came to the Knights to take in that knowledge.

She has an autistic grandson and was happy to see the presentations that centered around neurodivergence.

She hopes that some people in the community who are not educated on autism and other forms of neurodivergence would be willing to educate themselves.

“If you understand what’s ‘wrong’ with them, you see that there’s nothing wrong with them. They are children. That’s our children. Some people don’t understand that.”

When spoken to on Wednesday afternoon, she had cleared her agenda for the day to be at the conference - and she’d be doing the same on Thursday.

Along with the different booths were a full slate of presenters from Kahnawake and outside the community.

“All the speakers are very well versed. They have years of experience, sometimes combined experience,” said Phillips.

Those include Phillips giving a rundown of Connecting Horizons’ achievements in the last few years and what they want to do in the near future; a presentation by MCK council chief Ryan Montour, wheelchair user and frequent Connecting Horizons collaborator Cathy Rice, and plumber Hank Leblanc; a presentation on breaking barriers when it comes to ADHD by Agnes Zagury and Trisha Lahache Wellman; and breaking down social barriers for those who have autism or other special needs by Peter Montour, Tanisha Tan, Meaghan Bourgeois, and Jaime Samayoa, who all work with KSCS’ Assisted Living Services and Independent Living Center.

Zagury and Lahache Wellman also ran their own booth during the conference, for the neuroINCLUSION Guide, an online quiz to see how you think, and that gives tips on how to make tasks easier as well as providing a way to schedule meetings to that end.

“We encourage people to share some of the challenges or some of the strengths they feel from their neurodivergence,” said Zagury, who has an educational background.

Lahache Wellman said that a conference like Breaking Barriers was sorely needed in the community.

“Neurodiversity, disabilities, anything that’s not seen as the norm is really underserved, and a lot of people don’t know about a lot of things,” she said.

“I think being able to come here and to learn from experts and people with lived experiences is really beneficial, because everyone that comes here, they’re go ing to leave with a takeaway that is not just for them, but maybe also for their family.”

Part of that educational effort is that of breaking barriers, weather it is barriers in gaining knowledge of special needs, or breaking down barriers for those with special needs.

Phillips gave the example of painting steps to make them stand out to those who may be visually impaired: a cheap solution to a problem that may not seem obvious if you don’t have the knowledge.

“There are so many barriers to removing barriers,” said Lahache Wellman.

“That’s what prevents people from doing things because they say no, that’s too much work. But in fact, there’s very simple things that you can do to remove some of these barriers.”

The net of topics for the conference was cast very wide, Phillips said, because it shows how many things are special needs concerns, something which may not seem obvious before you sit down and look at it from that perspective.

“Bringing all these things together, people never really realize how much we all are connected,” said Phillips.

While another big, three-day conference is not exactly in the cards for the future quite yet, she did say Connecting Horizons would explore more targeted, one-day events in the future.

For now, it’s time to take in just how much of an achievement this conference has been.

“Just seeing everybody coming together like this has been absolutely amazing,” said Phillips.

[email protected]