Dyslexia: It’s about celebrating difference and diversity

Dyslexic Pathways CIC was set up to break down the barriers to success in education, employment and in everyday life faced by dyslexics everywhere.

Our message is dyslexia represents the diversity inherent in humanity and we want to define dyslexia by what we can do and do well. The idea behind this crowd funding is to enable the 6 million dyslexics in the UK, the 66 million dyslexics in the USA and the nearly one billion dyslexics across the world to self advocate for a better deal for dyslexics everywhere, to start developing a coherent community and social movement as well as to raise awareness of a more positive profile of dyslexia.

Our Unique Dyslexic crowd funding campaign is seeking to raise funds to enable dyslexics across the world to advocate for a more positive profile of dyslexia for themselves. This is going to be done by printing and selling tee shirts with positive message logos about dyslexia that we have designed. The funds from this crowd funding will be used to do this to sell more tee shirts and to enable us to work towards Dyslexic Pathways CIC other goals.

Designs used will be selected by our social media followers. We will also be running a little competition for children under 16 years old. This will be to design a dyslexia logo for a tee shirt one that has a positive message. The winner will be selected by our social media followers.

Personally I have a very positive attitude towards my own dyslexia. This was not always so though. I know from my own personal experience and from other dyslexics I talk to that dyslexia can be a real pain. Our experiences of being dyslexic can impact our self esteem and confidence and can leave us feeling like failures. I do not see dyslexia as a disability but as a difference that represents the diversity inherent within humanity. It is society that disables us and this disabling begins in school where we are not taught be teachers who are trained to work with us in an inclusive learning environment.

But we can succeed I think we have to remember the world be poorer place were not for the creative talents of dyslexic, visionaries, entrepreneurs, architects, artists, inventers or writers etc? 

I founded Dyslexic Pathways Community Interest Company in 2009 it is a social enterprise. The main objective is to support and enable people with dyslexia to unlock their potential. Dyslexia Pathways CIC was the first dyslexia focussed social enterprise to be constituted in the world.  We have supported over 400 dyslexic students at universities here in Scotland supporting them on their degree and post graduate degree courses. We also work with individuals and organisations as well as on a couple of groups at the Scottish Parliament.

In 2014 we ran our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative campaign which was all about promoting and celebrating dyslexic creativity and raising awareness of the social model of dyslexia. It was about getting dyslexics together, having fun creatively, and sharing their stories of being dyslexic and rebuilding self esteem and self confidence.  We reached out dyslexics locally here in Fife and central Scotland but throughout the world. 50 people attended of five free creative workshops on visual art, music creating fused glass art etc. We have over 580 likes on our Facebook page over 3000 thousand dyslexics across the would follow our social media

Most recently Dyslexic Pathways CIC held the “Unique Dyslexic: Get Creative – Celebration of Creativity”. Here we exhibited the work done by participants at the workshop and artwork from creative dyslexics from across the world. Dyslexic entertainers such as dyslexic poet Anita Govan provided our audience with brilliant entertainment. The feedback provided for the Unique Dyslexic programme and the Festival of Creativity was extremely positive. Over 60 people attended the event and 15 volunteers helped us to make it a success.

This is part of a larger fundraising effort to diversify and grow as an organisation. Dyslexia Pathways CIC is planning to open a new dyslexia centre to support dyslexics in Fife and across the world It’s an ambitious project but I believe we have the team and support to achieve our goal. This is the start of a social movement that will raise awareness of our more positive vision of dyslexia.