Title: I'm Brianna Couture

Producer: Marty Langford

Region: U.S.A., North America

Length: 4:29

Issues: Disability, Tolerance

Description:

"Why the issue dealt with in the submission is meaningful and how the story can inspire has inspired positive change" What does a person with a severe disability look like? If the image that came to mind was a person who uses a wheelchair for mobility, than you're not alone. But here are the facts: over 26 million people in the United States with severe disability, of those 26 million only 7 million use assistive devices such as a wheelchair, cane, crutch or walker. In other words over 74% of the Americans with severe disabilities do not use any devices. So you can't judge a persons disability by whether or not the person looks disabled. It is "invisible." Our daughter Brianna saw your contest on Current TV and asked what I thought about her doing a piece on discrimination. She felt that this was the perfect chance to share our family's story and I couldn't have agreed more. Brianna wrote to her friend's uncle, Marty Langford, asking him to help tell her story. Brianna wanted the pod cast to reflect who she was, a little silly, a little dramatic and a whole lot of inspiring! She didn't want to do anything to emotionally heavy, believing that laughter can be just a powerful as tears when it comes to empowering change in people perceptions, challenging them to look harder. Brianna's goal is to make people aware of the unconscious cruelty in the ignorance of people's treatment because of pre-judging a healthy appearing person.