Hello,
If you are new into reading this blog, my name is Alex Sweeney and I was the Inclusion Advancement Liaison (IAL) from September 2013 to April 2014. In the past, I had made a focus to complete two campaigns that focused on making awareness about disabilities at the Mount. From October to November, I led in an Autism and General Disabilities campaign on campus through blog posts that addressed information as well as putting on a couple of improvisational comedy nights. In January, my team, which consisted of learning strategist Michelle Greencorn, VP Advocacy of the MSVU Students' Union, Justin Corcoran and fellow students Monica and Leslie, joined me in a video project that asked students about their views on mental health as our way of taking part in Bell's Let's Talk Day.
My final project was to highlight the position of the IAL and what this person does by looking through the past two holders of that position as well as members of the recent team to share about their thoughts on the position. This allowed us to display this position and explain it to students and faculty who have never heard of it before. You can now find the video here, and I hope that you enjoy what these people had to say.
Take care and welcome to the new year!
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Intro Video - Behind the Scenes
Here's a quick behind the scenes look at the editing process for our upcoming video to be launched later this semester.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Stay Tuned...
Hi everyone,
We're not ignoring the "public", but we are working on a new video. It's going to talk about something that many of the students and faculty at the Mount are probably not familiar with, but we'll be fixing that soon. The video will be out hopefully in late March, so stay tuned as it will appear here.
Thank you,
Alex Sweeney
Inclusion Advancement Liaison 2013-14
We're not ignoring the "public", but we are working on a new video. It's going to talk about something that many of the students and faculty at the Mount are probably not familiar with, but we'll be fixing that soon. The video will be out hopefully in late March, so stay tuned as it will appear here.
Thank you,
Alex Sweeney
Inclusion Advancement Liaison 2013-14
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Let's Talk about Mental Health
We all hear about it during our life, but what surprises me is that not everyone realizes that having mental illness can be classified as a disability. At the Mount, we are able to accommodate for such problems, just like how we would with other disabilities. This is something that I find to be awesome about this campus.
Last week, we at the Inclusion Advancement team asked students, faculty and staff what mental health meant to them and recorded the responses on video. We have premiered the video earlier this afternoon as part of our mental health campaign. Since today is Bell Let's Talk Day for 2014, we decided to take part in our own way without making official ties with Bell Canada (perhaps another year, maybe?). Below, you can find the video we produced on campus.
In order to end the stigma surrounding mental illness, we need to reach out and help those who are suffering from it. We hope that this video helps to inspire people and spark up conversations about mental health at the Mount campus. The campus also offers counselling services inside Evaristus Hall. For more information, please check out:
Counselling Services: msvu.ca/counselling | (902) 457-6567
Disability Services: msvu.ca/disabilityservices | (902) 457-6323
Bell Let's Talk: bell.ca/letstalk
Last week, we at the Inclusion Advancement team asked students, faculty and staff what mental health meant to them and recorded the responses on video. We have premiered the video earlier this afternoon as part of our mental health campaign. Since today is Bell Let's Talk Day for 2014, we decided to take part in our own way without making official ties with Bell Canada (perhaps another year, maybe?). Below, you can find the video we produced on campus.
In order to end the stigma surrounding mental illness, we need to reach out and help those who are suffering from it. We hope that this video helps to inspire people and spark up conversations about mental health at the Mount campus. The campus also offers counselling services inside Evaristus Hall. For more information, please check out:
Counselling Services: msvu.ca/counselling | (902) 457-6567
Disability Services: msvu.ca/disabilityservices | (902) 457-6323
Bell Let's Talk: bell.ca/letstalk
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Let's Talk!
Greetings, Mount students, and welcome to the new year of 2014 (even though I'm late in saying that)!
Bell Let's Talk Day is Tuesday, January 28th, and to help it out on this campaign in Halifax, we at the Inclusion Advancement team are planning to work on a video throughout the next two weeks and launch it on that day. If you'd like to join in on our video project, please feel free to contact me (Inclusion Advancement Liaison), Justin Corcoran (Vice President Advocacy) or Michelle Greencorn (MSVU Disability Services).
Take care!
Bell Let's Talk Day is Tuesday, January 28th, and to help it out on this campaign in Halifax, we at the Inclusion Advancement team are planning to work on a video throughout the next two weeks and launch it on that day. If you'd like to join in on our video project, please feel free to contact me (Inclusion Advancement Liaison), Justin Corcoran (Vice President Advocacy) or Michelle Greencorn (MSVU Disability Services).
Take care!
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
October = Autism Awareness Month
Hello Mount students!
I want to let you all know today that this month (October) is Autism Awareness Month here at the Mount. It's going to be a rather fun month to get to learn about a permanent disability that affects many people in Canada (1 in 88, to be exact). So to help put on awareness, I thought I write a little bit about what Autism is.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, or simply Autism) is a neural developmental disorder, meaning that it affects the development of the brain, though you mainly see it from a psychological perspective. Symptoms can vary from person to person, hence why it is called a spectrum disorder. Therefore, if you have met one autistic person, that's just it: one autistic person. The old adage of "you see one thing, you've seen them all" does not really apply in this case.
I also live with Autism. For me, it's not really the easiest to live with something that can restrict you full potential to do things. But I have had help over the years through early intervention, speech language pathologists, etc. One of the main way that Autism acts as a disability for me is that I cannot fully pick up on some social cues that many people take for granted. Yes, it's frustrating, but I do have a habit of going through learning curves, so maybe I'll get through it someday.
So if you want to get a better understanding of Autism, my advice is to go and meet an autistic person. Get to know them, their interests, their dreams, their story. I can't emphasize more on how important it is to really know a person, except that knowing a person with a disability, or even being friends with one, is a great start to helping them out later in life.
In other news, to celebrate Autism Awareness Month, we will be hosting a poetry slam/talent night in Vinnie's Pub in the middle-end of October. it will be a fun and free event that will be open to Mount students and faculty, and i will be around to answer questions that you may have about what my life is like with Autism. If you want to be involved with this event, you can email me here. Stay tuned on Facebook for more information on the event. If you want more information about Autism, you can check out Autism Nova Scotia.
Have a fun-filled month!
Alex Sweeney
Inclusion Advancement Liaison, MSVU
I want to let you all know today that this month (October) is Autism Awareness Month here at the Mount. It's going to be a rather fun month to get to learn about a permanent disability that affects many people in Canada (1 in 88, to be exact). So to help put on awareness, I thought I write a little bit about what Autism is.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, or simply Autism) is a neural developmental disorder, meaning that it affects the development of the brain, though you mainly see it from a psychological perspective. Symptoms can vary from person to person, hence why it is called a spectrum disorder. Therefore, if you have met one autistic person, that's just it: one autistic person. The old adage of "you see one thing, you've seen them all" does not really apply in this case.
I also live with Autism. For me, it's not really the easiest to live with something that can restrict you full potential to do things. But I have had help over the years through early intervention, speech language pathologists, etc. One of the main way that Autism acts as a disability for me is that I cannot fully pick up on some social cues that many people take for granted. Yes, it's frustrating, but I do have a habit of going through learning curves, so maybe I'll get through it someday.
So if you want to get a better understanding of Autism, my advice is to go and meet an autistic person. Get to know them, their interests, their dreams, their story. I can't emphasize more on how important it is to really know a person, except that knowing a person with a disability, or even being friends with one, is a great start to helping them out later in life.
In other news, to celebrate Autism Awareness Month, we will be hosting a poetry slam/talent night in Vinnie's Pub in the middle-end of October. it will be a fun and free event that will be open to Mount students and faculty, and i will be around to answer questions that you may have about what my life is like with Autism. If you want to be involved with this event, you can email me here. Stay tuned on Facebook for more information on the event. If you want more information about Autism, you can check out Autism Nova Scotia.
Have a fun-filled month!
Alex Sweeney
Inclusion Advancement Liaison, MSVU
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