An international campaign raising awareness about how the use of derogatory speech affects people with intellectual disabilities is making its debut appearance at the University of Saskatchewan, thanks to the Best Buddies student group on campus.

Founded in 1989, Best Buddies is an international, dynamic and growing organization that works to enhance the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Its recent campaign titled Spread the Word to End the Word, initiated in 2009, helps raise awareness of how the word retard(ed), or the R-word, affects people with intellectual disabilities.

As a starting point to create more accepting attitudes and communities, the campaign asks people to pledge to stop saying the R-word. Currently, nearly 600,000 people have pledged to stop using the R-word worldwide.

Max Liu, a first-year arts and science student and an executive member of the U of S Best Buddies, shares the significance of the campaign.

“I think words, nowadays, are really taken for granted. People are so desensitized to the effects that certain words hold on specific populations and groups. I think the R-word is very derogatory to people who have intellectual disabilities,” Liu said.

The U of S Spread the Word to End the Word campaign will take place on Mar. 14–15 in the E-wing of the Health Sciences Building and the Arts Tunnel, respectively.

The campaign will include a booth where people can sign the pledge and help raise awareness by sharing pictures online. By doing so, students can win one of 10 Famoso gift cards valued at $10 each. People can also take a pledge online through the campaign’s website.

At the start of the school year, Best Buddies pairs volunteers with people who have intellectual disabilities to develop one-on-one friendships. The commitment of the program is to meet with your buddy twice a month.

“We definitely want a friendship to be formed where it doesn’t feel like you have to be doing this twice a month, whereas it’s more like we can talk to each other in social media, we can text each other, check in how each other are doing and then grab a bite to eat here and there or catch a show somewhere. It’s literally just hanging out,” Liu said.

Liu believes that with this new campaign, more people will become aware of the Best Buddies community and how the R-word affects people with intellectual disabilities.

“I believe that U of S students will support the campaign strongly. It’s a big reflection on the culture of our school that we are very inclusive and we have a great respect to one another. And I think this campaign will definitely reflect that, but the point of the campaign will be to promote awareness and consciousness to people, especially again with phrases like the R-word becoming so desensitized in regular everyday language that we just want to put the word out there,” Liu said.

The new campaign is only one of the programs that the group is planning to launch. The community is also aspiring to start a Best Buddies program in some high schools in Saskatoon.

The U of S Best Buddies hopes to see more volunteers this coming academic year and Liu assures students that volunteering does not feel like work at all.

“I would say that all of our buddies are super eager to get to know new people. Again, it would be very nice if we saw a lot of new faces for next year. It seriously doesn’t feel like work. It’s just a lot of fun.”

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Jaline Broqueza

Graphic: Jeremy Britz / Graphics Editor