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Promoting Inclusion for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

STARAbility Foundation

Today is Spread the Word Day -- the word being inclusion. It’s a rebranding of sorts of a decade-old campaign called Spread the Word to End the Word -- the word that campaign sought to end is the word 'retarded'that has been used historically in this country as a derogatory way to refer to people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The new Spread the Word Day is all about promoting efforts to create and nurture inclusion for people with disabilities in all aspects of our lives. The Spread the Word campaign’s website says it's:“Expanding our focus beyond the R-word will issue a welcomed challenge to all of us to create the connections we see missing and to replace the fear of difference we see around us with an embrace of inclusion.”

Joining us today to talk about efforts to expand inclusion are two women who work everyday to do just that: Karen Govern is Executive Director of the STARability Foundation in Naples; and Melanie Musick is the area director for Best Buddies, it’s an international nonprofit dedicated to ending the social, physical and economic isolation of the 200 million people with intellectual and developmental disabilities all around the world.

Copyright 2019 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.