Peer Buddies helps DV students

To the Editor:
Being a student at Delaware Valley High School has opened me up to many new opportunities, including Peer Buddies. Peer buddies is a club where you work with teens that have intellectual disabilities and help them to develop social skills and teach “general” education students that the teens with intellectual disabilities are not as different as they think they are, they just express themselves differently than we do. While being the president of that club I learned how harmful slurs directed towards people with intellectual disabilities affected the teens that we work with in peer buddies, that’s how “Spread the Word to end the Word” was brought into our school. “Spread the Word to end the Word” is a campaign that fights the incorrect use of the “r-word” (retarded). Every March, people pledge to not incorrectly use the “r-word” and learn information so they understand how offensive it can be. Ever since we started this in our school last year, we’ve noticed a huge difference. Now we want to bring it to our community. We’re hoping that you will also pledge to not incorrectly use the “r-word”, not allow the use of the “r-word” in your paper. This may seem like a silly thing but, starting to cut out the incorrect use of the r-word around Pike County may be the one step that starts a whole new movement. We’re hoping that one day incorrect use of the “r-word” will be treated as a curse word, and bleeped out or just not used on national television and radio broadcasting. If you could mention “Spread the Word to end the Word” in your paper before March 4th, our community will know where they can make a difference. To pledge and learn more information about Spread the Word to end the Word”, you can visit the r-word.org.

Madison Retallick