How do you advocate if?

Today, I am thinking, “If you never have seen anyone else advocate for themselves and others, how do you learn to do it?” I mean, how do you get the skills to advocate with no one modeling them for you? Sadly, most of the time they allow other people (usually a person without disabilities) to speak for them rather than speaking for themselves.

??????????????So, the question really is, “How do you learn advocacy skills?” The good thing is that there are many ways to learn how to do so now. The most effective way has always been having a mentor (or many mentors) to teach you how they do it. By learning from them, you can understand the different ways to advocate – whether it is in person speaking to the people who can make the changes you are advocating for, via phone, text, e-mail, social media (Twitter), a demonstration (action/protest) about the policy that you desire changed, or whatever other ways you can use to speak up for or against something.

??????????????However, if having a mentor is not an option, you could learn some skills from attending zooms (or other types of online meeting platforms) or watching YouTube videos on advocacy. It is not a perfect way to learn since you cannot ask the questions that you may want to ask during the zooms, and you cannot ask them from the YouTube videos – unless you can get contact information from those teaching in them.

??????????????Finally, there is reading books, blogs, or newspaper/magazine articles about advocacy – and they also can give you tips on how to do it. Again, this is not the best way to do it as you cannot get immediate feedback from media, but it is a way to start learning if you have no other way to start.

??????????????So once more I ask myself, “How would I advocate for myself if I had never done it or seen it done by someone else before me?” I hope to always keep this question in my mind as I help to teach others how they can start being their own advocate.