Include Choir member Joss shares his thoughts…
“I have been part of other choirs, and they tried and were nice – but it wasn’t like coming to Include. They weren’t doing anything particularly offensive, Include is just better!
Include people say “Hello” and treat me like my best friends treat me. We can be complete strangers – but when I’m around them, I feel I can walk.
I only get that feeling from my very, very, very close, and I mean very close friends.
Elsewhere, especially in the outside world, it’s not very like that. I just want to be with the Include guys every single day because they are accepting of me. Include are family to me.
Include is not just a choir – it’s not just saying right we are choir, join us, tick in the box and that’s it.
Include Choir and Alix decide day by day we’re actively going to include every single one of these people who are less included, and take the people who are totally on the margins of society and say look come and sing with us, you are not different in this room.
The D Word
I don’t look at myself as disabled.
Places like Include and people like Alix are just wonderful, they don’t see your disability. The Include Choir focus on the fact you can sing!
If you ask Alix about who Joss is she will say something like, “He is pretty good on a drum, he can talk the hind legs off a donkey, but I completely ignore the fact that he is disabled.”
I think about 90% of society you ask might say, “this kid is disabled” and only about 3% go “Actually he is a really nice guy,” and they don’t look at me as disabled.
Some people think that to understand me they have to put this costume or label on me, “This guy is disabled.” And it’s not until you throw it off yourself – you throw it off your body and you say look I am able – they have a moment when they just stop and they go, “Ah – he is a nice guy!” And that moment of realisation is the most beautiful thing, and I can see it happen all the time. From that day on they will never call me disabled again – which is really beautiful.
Teaching the World…
That fact that The Include Choir performs in public places is really something big.
By doing that we’re actively teaching the world that we are all the same, we are just made from slightly different clay – we are not really that different to each other – we all have faces, we all live on the same planet etc.
People at the college I go to know that just because you’re disabled it, doesn’t mean you can’t do X, Y and Z or you can’t live your life. But my college is in the middle of nowhere, so no one really knows about us and what we can do.
Include takes that one step further because it puts people like me in front of able-bodied people and goes, “Look this is what Joss can do,” and they go “Wow, he can do that, he is in a wheelchair.” And they put the two together and it changes their lives because they realise that, even though I’m ‘disabled’ I can do a whole load of things that they can do.
On My Terms
Someone at my college recently asked me “What do you think about the term disabled?” I thought for a very long time and eventually I said, “It’s not me that gives me the term disabled, it’s society”. This resulted in an hour-long conversation about the term disability not being helpful. I would wipe that term out.
There are not many words that genuinely offend me, any swear word genuinely won’t offend me and won’t hurt me, but the term disabled does. It cuts me like a knife every time I hear it and it f***ing devastates me because it’s like, “stop putting me down, and raise me up”!
So, I have stopped calling myself disabled and there are people where I live that might say differently-abled and I prefer that – it doesn’t chop off my legs. It says that your legs move in a slightly different way and let’s be open and accepting of that.
Bigger Than Acceptance
Include has really helped me because I have enormous amounts of frustration and incredible bouts of anger that seem to come out of nowhere because I have to have carers all of the time. At college I have about three carers.
At Include I have only really got one, Steven and that’s it. When Steven sits with the choir and joins in it feels like family and it feels like acceptance.
It’s almost bigger than acceptance – Include Choir feels rather more than a single person accepting my disability, it’s like getting a whole room of people to accept my disability all at once, all over the world and yet it’s in an hour-long choir session with an interval!
Sing it from the rooftops
People like me don’t have many chances to walk – but singing is like walking. I am very grateful.
Include songs are f***ing brilliant, genuine from the heart with powerful messages. “In My World” is so beautiful it really is, and every time I hear it, it elicits more of a response from me, I don’t know why and I don’t think I will ever know why! It’s a statement for mankind.
I also like “Kind Communication” – because it’s explaining what I have been talking about – I think people need to hear these songs in places other than YouTube. I think they should be on Spotify.
Eventually, I hope that there will be an Include Choir in every country because its attitude is so welcoming. If there were other Include Choirs it would be a better place, more peaceful with less segregation.
I don’t like segregation or war; I am a peaceful man. We need an Include Choir everywhere we can get one because it brings peace to the world.”
The good news Joss, is that this summer we will be starting up another Include Choir…watch this space.
Communications, Fundraising and Partnerships Lead