Pushing the wheels with your hands, you slowly move to the back of the building. Pressing the handicapped button to open the door in front of you, you back up to let the door swing open before entering the building. Inching forward until you are on a platform, you lock down your wheels and place bars around you in order to be safe as you press the remote that activates the system built to lift you up the stairs. This is the experience of a person who uses a wheelchair and has to go through this process just to grab lunch at Brandeis.
In order to educate Creighton students about the struggles and experiences of fellow students with a disability, the Student Empowerment Network (SEN) hosts a scavenger hunt in wheelchairs. This event consists of teams where only one of the four to six teammates can be in a wheelchair as they push themselves to different campus buildings and collect tokens.
“The purpose of the event is for others to see what it is like to have a disability on
campus,” Kim McClintick, SEN president and fourth year pharmacy student, said. “There are many barriers that create issues for people with disabilities that people don’t even realize. Our hope is to open the eyes of Creighton students so that they may become more aware and sensitive to the barriers and help advocate for positive change.”
The SEN is a graduate student organization promoting disability awareness on campus. With the scavenger hunt, it is striving to educate students on the difficulties of living life in a wheelchair as well as the opportunities for creating a positive environmental change for those individuals. By inviting all Creighton students and staff to participate, the organization is showing how enthusiastic they are about their goals by creating an event that includes a lot of fun in its educational purpose.
About 40 students participated in last year’s event but McClintick is hoping for at least 50 participants this year. The activity is fun, but the education of the experience is even more important.
“When I was at Creighton I was on
crutches for a short time and found it challenging getting up the brick mall,” Anne Kern, a Creighton Health Professions alum said. “It gave me a lot of appreciation for how challenging it would be to get around in a handicapped situation at all times.”
For video footage of students in wheeling action as well as their accounts and reflections from last year’s scavenger hunt, visit http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=HVm_59ylhPM.