Ambassadors for Respect program helps open a dialogue about living with disabilities
MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — They can be obvious, or invisible to others. For those who haven't lived with a disability, it's difficult to know what someone with one is going through.
Sophia Vignali has accutane embryopathy. And she's passionate about sharing her disability with others.
"We are just like everyone else. We have wants, desires, interests," says Vignali.
Vignali is practicing for her next presentation in her role as an ambassador with the Ambassadors for Respect program, which pairs groups of adults with developmental disabilities who go into fourth grade classrooms and teach violence prevention skills.
"Instead of saying 'disabled person,' it's much better to say 'person with a disability'," says Vignali.
Giving tips and tricks like this to fourth graders is helpful as the program says most bullying happens in later elementary and middle school years.
Run by nonprofit PeaceMaker Minnesota, Ambassadors for Respect hopes to teach roughly 150 classrooms and 4,000 students in 2025.
Vignali's specialty is in teaching self-advocacy, inclusion and person-first language.
And Vignali isn't the only one prepping — over 100 other ambassadors across 17 teams in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin are, too.
"The reason this is a critical program is that this is a low-cost, highly effective method in preventing abuse," the Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities said in a statement.
The council has primarily funded the program for over a decade, and because of this funding, ambassadors are paid for this work.
"I'm gonna be handicapped the rest of my life but...I make the best of it," says Vignali.
