On April 13th at YAI headquarters, several self advocates were given the honor of presenting in front of several YAI board members. To prepare, we took the presentation seriously! We all arrived at 5pm to prepare with advisor Timothy Allen, we also made sure we had something to munch on before we made our presentation at 7pm.  

That night we fellow advocate Kenneth stated, “We make presentations at schools, colleges, organizations, conferences to talk about self advocacy.” For this reporter I presented “We want help in going to college with the application process, we would love to work in preparation for independent living, we would love driver’s education courses!” 

Keisha who spoke stated “we want respect, we want to be become more involved in YAI in many areas we want you all to believe in us and work with us.” A 10-minute video was presented with several self advocates stated proudly, “We want respect, we can make our own decisions, we can walk, we can talk, we want you walking with us!” 

When the presentation was finished, many on the board were impressed and happy. One member stated “it's always great hearing from you! Seeing you means we have work to do, and we’ll take this seriously! Afterwards many posed for a proud picture! And we left them with a proud quote we always use “YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT IT YOU BE ABOUT IT”  

From what was seen/heard to paraphrase the insurance company Allstate commercial “WE ARE IN GOOD HANDS”