SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Sunday, 28 September 2008

I am voting for optimism!




"Art" by Susie Mallett aged 5, 7 and 10 years


Bayern wählt” - Bavaria votes

Today the streets are full of people taking a walk in the sun and ending up in the local school to cast their votes in the regional elections. Many are probably wondering if their voices will be strong enough to bring about any changes they are hoping for.

I didn’t go to vote today, I only get a chance in the local elections, so I didn’t go out for a stroll to the polling station, but even so I am still wondering about the strength of my voice. I am asking myself can conductors and the rest of the conductive world collectively have a voice strong enough to bring about the changes that we hope for.

Instead of wandering down the road to vote, as I took a break from doing my paperwork, I took a walk around the internet and I discovered this website which brought a smile to my face on this sunny autumn Sunday, http://theteyafund.org/ . It fits well to my last posting “From the very start of life: pessimism or optimism”, September 26th 2008, and brings me to think that maybe it is not unrealistic to imagine that the start of each new life will be greeted with optimism and hope and not with pessimism and despair. It doesn’t have to be Conductive Education, there are other people out there who are also offering parents hope and maybe all the voices together can bring about change.


Notes

I thank my lovely mum for treasuring, for 47 years, the books from my first years at school. On my visit home just weeks before she died I found these books awaiting me on my bed. The pictures which head this posting come from the books dating from 1962, 1964 and 1967. My Mum always hoped for the best for her family and I thank her for the encouragement she gave me which was obviously enough to make an artist out of the child who did these first funny drawings.

Landtagswahl: German regional election http://www.welt.de/muenchen/article2497494/Was-mit-Bayern-bei-50-Prozent-minus-X-passiert.html

http://theteyafund.org/
http://www.cuevasmedek.com/ : this is the therapy programme which Teya followed.

Susie Mallett: http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/09/from-very-start-of-life-pessimism-or.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In your previous posting you asked what is Scope for. I don’t think that anyone could offer you an unequivocal response to that one but it doesn’t seem too closely aligned to the developmental optimism that you highlight here.

You also mentioned Scope’s multitasking head of research and social policy (uneasy bedfellows by any measure!). I took a quick flick through Google and found inter alia the following press report from The Independent newspaper of a little over a year ago:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/girl-with-cerebral-palsy-flies-to-china-for-untested-treatment-451384.html

I carry no brief for stem cells (though some of the other disability charities in the United Kingdom seem to put enough store in them to direct no little research money in that direction). Granting Scope’s record over Conductive Education some twenty years ago, however, his comments as quoted do seem a little ironic.