Who are the Kelowna Self Advocates?

We are people living in Kelowna, Winfield and Westbank, who have lived in institutions, group homes, proprietary care and Pri-care facilities. Some of us still live in these places, but many of us live in our own apartments and houses. Some of us have only ever lived in our parent's homes. Self Advocates have formed a group and we get together by our own choice. No one is forced to come to a meeting and you can leave a meeting if you want.

Self Advocates have all lived in situations where the decisions made in our lives were always made by other people, sometimes the self-advocate was not allowed to be a part of decision-making. Self Advocates are people who have for different reasons been labeled as handicapped. We may have learning or physical disabilities or other unique differences and challenges.

Why do Self Advocates have meetings?

The Kelowna Self Advocates get together to talk about problems we have, about how some of our problems are the same and about how they can be solved.

We talk about:

• How to make things better in our lives.

• Our Rights, Responsibilities and Abilities.  Watch the video!

• Our goals and what we want for ourselves not what other people want for us.

We ask many questions and demand answers. We think for ourselves and make our own decisions and help people in the group to understand things that are said.

We talk about what it was like to be locked away for many years and how we must stand up and make ourselves heard and how to let the world know that we do not wish to be shut out any more.

We talk about the ugliness in our past and share feelings about these times to help look to our future and make it more beautiful.

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