Spread the Word Inclusion
What We Do
Spread the Word is a global engagement campaign to increase inclusion amongst people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities through grassroots action. In schools, workplaces, and communities around the world, local leaders are taking a pledge to create socially inclusive places to learn, work, and live. In 2019, Spread the Word to End the Word became Spread the Word, with a focus not just on the elimination of a word but on the creation of a new reality: inclusion for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The campaign remains committed to empowering grassroots leaders to change their communities, schools, and workplaces, now through a call to their peers to commit to taking action for inclusion. With this change, Spread the Word will give community leaders for inclusion around the world the tools the needed to create change in their local circumstances.
Why Pledge
Our belief is that the world would be better if all people were valued, respected, embraced, included. Included in the games we play and the friends we make. Included in our schools, our workplaces, and our communities.
Our observation is that despite the best efforts of many, groups around the world remain left out, excluded, and isolated. One of these groups is people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a group made of more than 200 million people, representing every country, belief system, sexual orientation, gender expression, race, and ethnicity. Globally, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities continue to be excluded and isolated from their non-disabled peers in schools, workplaces, and communities.
Our goal is to disrupt this cycle of isolation and exclusion with grassroots action for inclusion in schools, workplaces, and communities around the world.
Reaching this goal starts with a single action: yours. You can take action today to make your school, your workplace, your community, and your world more inclusive. Seek out someone who has been left out, isolated, or bullied.
