I Want To Work

I Want To Work

Introduction to Campaign

The I Want To Work campaign is a Pennsylvania initiative that focuses on the employment of people with disabilities. The campaigns direct message is “People with disabilities, want to work, deserve to work, and are great for businesses.”

The campaign itself is described as “social media powered”. It is lead by young people with disabilities in Pennsylvania. The entire campaign follows different stories of young people with disabilities who want to work. Not only does the campaign find stories to highlight the majority of the campaign associates live with disabilities.

The campaign aims to get the office of vocational rehabilitation more involved with high school students. They want job coaches and jobs for students in high school with disabilities. The campaign also seeks to change perspectives. The campaign wants both young people with disabilities and able-bodied people to see those with disabilities as assets in the workplace. The bills the campaign brings forward to legislatures aims to garner further funding for the office of vocational rehabilitation.

Narrative Format

This campaign highlights stories in both video and written form. The most repeated story on the website is Josie Badger’s. Josie is both a woman with a physical disability and the campaign manager.

Josie’s story is highlighted in a blurb on the campaign associates page and elongated on the profiles page of the website. On both pages, she is the center of the story. Josie speaks for herself. She highlights how the passing of laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA has helped her life.

Josie does not state how her disability has negatively impacted her life. Her stories only highlight her capable nature and her extensive education.  

On the videos tab, Josie speaks for the campaign but does not speak about her own life. However, just by showing Josie who has a clear disability, as an independent asset to her own campaign she is telling the story of the campaign and helping to meet her goal of changing perceptions.

The story clearly cast Josie as the hero. She is well spoken, organized, intelligent, and passionate. The goal of the campaign is to highlight the capabilities of disabled people. Josie does this incredibly well by matching if not raising the expectations of traditional campaign manager and narrative speaker.  

Josie is seen as the hero of a moment working towards change. She is active in implementing change that will impact her own life. It is very powerful to see a woman who might be shrugged off or diminished in an everyday setting as speaking for a movement.

In terms of the implication of advocacy, this campaign follows the structure of “nothing about us without us” a popular saying in the disability community. This campaign does not face any moral qualms about advocating for a group without their participation. Furthermore, the people who this movements impacts are not puppets they are the ones leading changing and choosing the stories that get out to people.

The overall story of the campaign does not make anyone a victim. To make anyone a victim would go against what the organization is trying to accomplish. Furthermore, there is no real villain. The only villain is that more hasn’t been done since the passing of the ADA. However, the storytellers of the campaign do not seem bitter about this. Instead, they, the heroes of the campaign seek to remedy this problem now.

Overall, the stories are integrated well with the rest of the campaign. The stories, particularly Josie’s, emphasize the values of the movement. There is no real emotional heart-wrenching tale on the stories page. While that can leave the reader wanting more emotional fulfillment ultimately it fits the goal of the campaign. These people are not sob stories and they are more than the hands they’ve been dealt. These people are intelligent, passionate, and hard-working, their narratives reflect that.  

This campaign encompassing three out of six moral foundational values in the Mathews reading. This campaign is based on liberty, fairness, and scantity. The campaign seeks for the freedom of those who want to work to be able to do so. Freedom is the value of liberty. The campaign seeks for equality between abled and disabled bodies. Equality is the value highlighted by fairness. And this campaign is rooted in bringing scantity or dignity to those who are disabled.