Straight Ahead Pictures

CONTACT:

Box 395
Conway, MA 01341
413-369-4372
straightaheadpictures.org

Laurie Block, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

The Disability History Museum (DHM) grew out of an award-winning 1998-9 National Public Radio series of four hour-long programs, "Beyond Affliction: The Disability History Project." The series was broadcast by more than 235 public radio stations across the country, and is now used widely for training and education in schools, corporations, government agencies, charities, and many other venues. It was produced by Straight Ahead Pictures (SAP), founded in 1989, which had previously won numerous awards for both NPR and PBS television programs.

Over the past 30 years, people with disabilities have made great progress in securing their civil rights — culminating in the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Despite many successes in education, employment, and social resources, myths and stereotypes about disabilities still impede full participation in American society. A pivotal place to overcome these prejudices is in public schools, where children with and without disabilities are in direct daily contact, and where teachers can constructively influence both. By far the most cost-effective way to reach teachers and children in schools these days is on the Internet.

The DHM has three interrelated features: a Library, which archives texts, images and artifacts illustrative of disability history in America; a Museum, with interpretive exhibits using Library artifacts to explore significant themes and topics in disability history; and an Education section which provides teaching guides and curricula to help teachers integrate Library and Museum materials into regular social studies, language arts, math and science classrooms.

Leading educational, cultural, and community institutions nationwide have helped to develop these resources. This is an innovative project that individuals are more likely to support it than either government or large foundations. What it needs, ideally, is a small number of visionary, innovative, entrepreneurial, and technologically up-to-speed, donor-investors who can bring their expertise and experience to the table, as well as their financial support. That spells "Venture Philanthropy."

(2001: CULTURE: Education: Informal: General)