PNU Campaign for Disability Awareness
PNU held a campaign with hands-on booths to promote April 20th as the Day for the Abolition of Disability Discrimination.
“Both people with and without disabilities are ultimately just ‘people,’ but I feel that the spectrum of what’s considered ‘normal’ has been set too narrowly,” said Jo Su-Hyeon (Dept. of Philosophy, 24), whom we met at the promotional campaign for the “Day for the Abolition of Disability Discrimination” on April 20th. After experiencing the booths set up to improve disability awareness, she expressed that she felt that everyone is the same-but-individual people.
On April 3rd, the Department of Special Education at Pusan National University (PNU) held a campaign in the Nuknukhan-Teo (Nuk-Teo) to mark the 29th annual “Day for the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities.” Sponsored by the Center for Students with Disabilities, the event aimed to raise awareness about the meaning behind April 20th and to promote using the term “Day for the Abolition of Disability Discrimination” instead of “Day of Persons with Disabilities,” which many believe carries connotations of pity and charity.
In this event as well, students emphasized calling April 20, which is designated as “Day of Persons with Disabilities,” as “Day for the Abolition of Disability Discrimination” instead. They argued, according to coverage from Channel PNU on April 11th, 2024, that the term “Day of Persons with Disabilities” positions non-disabled people as the subjects who pity persons with disabilities and perceives disability as something to be overcome, so it should be renamed to foster awareness aimed at eliminating discrimination against people with disabilities. Lee Tae-Hyun (Dept. of Special Education, 23), a student council member, emphasized that “We hope to correct misunderstandings about people with disabilities and share proper ways to interact with them. People with disabilities are no different from us as members of society.”
Various experience booths were set up at the event to correct misunderstandings about disabilities and promote better understanding. These included the Quiz Zone, Visual Impairment Experience, Multiple Severe Disabilities Experience, Paralympic Sports Experience booths and others. The experience booths, arranged in one part of the Nuk-Teo, were crowded with many students. At the visual impairment experience booth, participants made braille bookmarks, engraving phrases of their choice using braille tools or writing braille directly to understand how the braille system works.
One of this year’s highlights was a newly introduced booth simulating severe multiple disabilities, which refer to combinations of intellectual or developmental disabilities with other conditions such as visual, hearing, physical, or emotional impairments. Participants wore low-vision glasses and sound-blocking headsets together to indirectly experience multiple disabilities, specifically the combination of low vision and hearing loss. After the activity, one participant shared, “It was actually harder to concentrate because the surrounding sounds felt amplified with my limited sight. I realized just how many obstacles people with disabilities face every day.”
At the Paralympic booth, held on the basketball court, students tried out goalball and sitting volleyball—sports designed for athletes with disabilities. Goalball is a sport designed for individuals with visual impairments, in which players try to throw a ball with bells into the opposing team’s goal. After playing, Park So-Mang (Dept. of Sociology, 20) said, “I’ve never had a chance to experience sports for people with disabilities before, so it felt new and interesting. It made me more interested in the kinds of efforts our society is making to live together with people with disabilities.”
In addition to the booths, posters featuring stories of people who have overcome disabilities were displayed to offer more perspectives. Heo Da-Hyun (Dept. of Business Administration, 24), who experienced every booth, said, “I’ll definitely remember that April 20th marks the Day for the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities.”
The Department of Special Education plans to continue promoting disability awareness through future events such as the “Turtle Camp”—which fosters interaction between students with and without disabilities—and teaching demonstration contests.
Reporter Lim Seung-Ha
Translated by Seo Yoo-Jung