W<N
share with deve
disabled people.
Nanda Soares and Tonya Sleta partic ipate in a shoe-tieing exercise.
LESLIE ZACK
College Intern
F
or students in Norrup
Middle School's
Diversity Club, it was a
lesson about respect and
a time to discover similarities.
When Sheryl Garfinkel of
Farmington Hills spoke in teacher
Gail Katz' Berkley classroom, she
described her life as a developmen-
tally disabled person. The JARC
(Jewish Association for Residential
Care) client, who lives with three
other disabled women in the
Manny and Natalie Charach
Home, talked of her interest in
guitar, puppies, cartoons and the
television show "Jeopardy."
Dozens of smiles crossed students'
faces as they realized how much they
had in common with her.
Garfinkel, who works at the
Lillian and Samuel Hechtman
Jewish Apartments in West
Bloomfield carrying trays for the
elderly, was addressing an audience
for the first time on Dec. 20. She
is a member of Southfield-based
JARC's Consumer Speakers
Bureau, which is dedicated to hav-
ing developmentally disabled peo-
ple speak directly to groups in an
effort to educate them about living
productively with a disability.
Sarah Aasheim, JARC's com-
munity relations coordinator who
accompanied Garfinkel, said:
"The program is very powerful
and effective."
She added that the ultimate
message to convey is respect.
Aasheim explained how
patience, understanding and
respect are necessary to fully
understand how to interact with a
developmentally disabled person.
To get a sense of what it's like to
have a disability, the students were
paired and asked to place their
dominant hands behind their
backs. Then they had to tie a
shoelace. Though it sounds simple,
they found they were very frustrat-
ed.
Nanda Soares, 11, originally
from Brazil, and her friend Tonya
Sleta, 11, originally from Russia,
both now living in Oak Park,
found the exercise difficult, but
understood the point. They joined
the Diversity Club for the same
reason — they wanted to learn
about other people.
"The best way to learn and
understand someone is to practice
empathy, to emotionally identify
with them," Aasheim said.
The students, as well as
Garfinkel and Katz, all nodded in
agreement.
As Katz, who hopes to visit a
JARC home in spring with the
Diversity Club, put it: "I want to
make sure everyone feels a part of
the school with all the economic,
racial and developmental differ-
ences. The diversity club is here to
teach them."
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