NOTHING ABOUT ME WITHOUT ME PRESENTED BY MIA FARAH

MIA FARAH Hi, my name is Mia Farah. I am from Lebanon.

Thank you I would like to say thank you to the UN for giving me the chance to come here. I went you to know who we are and what we can do for our communities.

We are very slow

But we can do a lot of things…

With support. We can learn. We can have jobs. We can be active in society.

Around the world a lot of things are changing. We want to be part of this change.

We have four basic requests. 1- We want respect. 2 - We want choice. 3 - We want participation. 4 - We want support.

Learn to know us as the persons we are. First, We want respect. Learn to know us as the persons we are.

Respect our difference. Do not call us bad names, this hurts us. If you want to talk about us you may say that we are slow learners, but WE CAN LEARN Being slow means that we need more time and help to learn..

Respect our difference. I went to school.

Respect our difference. I worked as a teacher’s aide.

Respect our difference. Now, I am a painter,

Respect our difference. And I am learning how to make films for cinema and television.

Like the choice of living in our community. Second , we want choice. Like the choice of living in our community.

Choice We have the right to be treated like everyone else. We have the right to go to the same school as our brothers or sisters.

CHOICE We love to Learn Have friends Choose where to go Choose with whom we want to spend our time.

Third, we want Participation. We have the right to be part of society.

Participation We have a lot of things to say, We want to say them We would like you to listen to us.

PARTICIPATION We know that we have rights, We want to learn about those rights, They guarantee us a better quality of life.

Fourth, we want support. We know that we make mistakes but like you we can learn from our mistakes.

SUPPORT We are slow and we need your support To improve To love ourselves.

SUPPORT Our parents need your support too . They need to learn about our condition They need to learn how to help us better.

Thank you Thank you for listening to me.