Ok I know I have been banging on about this for a while..........

Hi blog readers hope you are all well

Firstly I would like to say my heart goes out to all those affected by the earthquake in Nepal and all those who lost their lives in this disaster.

The goal of Dyslexic Pathways CIC and our Unique Dyslexic campaign is to break down the barriers faced by those who are dyslexic. Our message is dyslexia represents the diversity inherent in humanity.

The world would be a poorer place if it were not for the vision, empathy, problem solving, entrepreneurial and creativity abilities we as dyslexics have. We want to define dyslexia by what we can do and do well. 

Our vision is to enable dyslexics to self advocate for a better deal for dyslexics everywhere, to start developing a coherent community and to raise awareness of a more positive profile of dyslexia.

The money raised from our Unique Dyslexic Campaign appeal will:

1. We have designs ready to be  professionally realise our positive message logo designs for the tee shirts by a graphic artist.
2. Pay for the tee shirts and printing ready for sale.
3. Sell the tee shirts through our social media to enable dyslexics to advocate our more positive dyslexia vision
4. To utilise monies earned from the tee shirts to design and print more tee shirts and enable us to continue supporting dyslexics all over the world.    
5. We will also be asking young dyslexics who follow our social media to send in their own designs for tee shirt logos.
6. If we achieve our target one of these designs will be used as part of this campaign. We will ask our young  followers to choose which design to use. Even if we do not reach our target we will seek funding other funders to support this campaign.

This is part of a larger fundraising effort to diversify and grow as an organisation. Dyslexia Pathways CIC is a not for profit social enterprise and are planning to open a new dyslexia centre to support dyslexics in Fife and across the world

Its an ambitious project but I believe we have the team and support to achieve our goal. This is the start of a social movement that will raise awareness of our more positive vision of dyslexia.

So please visit our Indiegogo crowd funding page and donate to our crowd funding campaign.


http://igg.me/p/unique-dyslexic--2/x/9774884

Many thanks for reading

Steve

Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding appeal update

Founded in 2009 Dyslexia Pathways CIC was the first dyslexia focussed Community Interest Company in the world.

Two weeks ago we launched our Unique Dyslexic crowd funding appeal.

Dyslexia Pathways CIC and our Unique Dyslexic Campaign promote dyslexia as a difference that reflects the diversity inherent within humanity.

The aim of our #UniqueDyslexic project is to promote and support the creative talents of dyslexics across the word. Money raised from our crowdfunding will be used to enable dyslexics to support and promote our positive vision of dyslexia using tee shirt logos with positive messages about dyslexia. Ones that focus on what we do well.

 

We are also planning to open a new dyslexia centre here in Fife as well as stage 2 of our Unique Dyslexic campaign.

Please share this with your contacts and enable us to make our appeal a success. Just click on the link below to visit our Indiegogo crowd funding page.

We have just over 40 days to achieve our target so please visit our Indiegogo crowd funding page and contribute today.

http://igg.me/p/unique-dyslexic--2/x/9774884

So far we have achieve 5% of our target from 7 contributors in 14 days. We have a long way to go but with your support we can achieve our target and our aims for this project.

If you like what you see please donate or share amongst your contacts and help make our crowd funding appeal a success.

Many thanks in advance."

Dyslexia Pathways CIC mentioned in this European academic paper:

 

Creating Communities: Local, National and Global :

"Dyslexia Pathways CIC has led the way for

social inclusion for those within the disabled

community looking to access support to

enhance and develop their skillset. There

continues to remain an urgent need for person

centered planning."


Steve McCue (Founder and CEO Dyslexia Pathways CIC)

http://www.uniquedyslexic.com/

Dyslexia: Its about diversity / crowd funding update

Like so many dyslexics I think I left school with no qualifications what so ever. I don’t really know this because I didn’t even bother to open the letter from the school that had my results in.

If you asked me when I left school that I would become an dyslexia and inclusion specialist, social entrepreneur, musician, writer, blogger and dyslexia and human rights advocate I would have laughed in your face.

I didn’t find out that I was dyslexic until I was 35 when I went back into education. It was the dyslexia assessment that enabled me to understand why I had not done so well at school as a kid.

Basically I went back to school for 7 years starting with learning basic writing and maths skills and ending up with an honours degree and my specialist inclusion and dyslexia teaching certificates. I believe that being dyslexic was one of the reasons why I managed to succeed in education

In 2009 I founded Dyslexic Pathways Community Interest Company it is a social enterprise. The main objective is to support and enable people with dyslexia to unlock their potential. Dyslexia Pathways CIC was the first dyslexia focussed social enterprise to be constituted in the world.  We work with dyslexic students at universities here in Scotland supporting them on their degree and post graduate degree courses. We also work with individuals and organisations as well as on a couple of groups at the Scottish Parliament.

Dyslexia Pathways CIC vision or message is that dyslexia is a difference that reflects the diversity inherent within humanity.  Our message is Viva la difference. Where would the world be if it were not dyslexic creative people, visionaries, entrepreneurs, architects or writers etc? 

We believe that Dyslexia Pathways CIC that dyslexia is part of who we are. That all many dyslexics need is support to overcome dyslexic and societal barriers to unlock their potential and enable them to succeed.

Our recent Unique Dyslexic – Get Creative programme not only reached dyslexics locally here in Fife and central Scotland but throughout the world with over 3000 creative dyslexics being part of our social media.  50 people attended our free creative workshops and we currently have over 570 likes on our Facebook page.

Most recently Dyslexic Pathways CIC held the “Unique Dyslexic: Get Creative - Festival of Creativity”. 

Here we exhibited the work done by participants at the workshop and artwork from creative dyslexics from across the world. Dyslexic entertainers such as dyslexic poet Anita Govan provided our audience with brilliant entertainment. The feedback provided for the Unique Dyslexic programme and the Festival of Creativity was extremely positive.

Dyslexic Pathways CIC was set up to break down the barriers faced by those who are dyslexic. Dyslexia represents the diversity inherent in humanity and we want to define dyslexia by what we can do and do well. The idea behind the tee shirts is to enable dyslexics to self advocate for a better deal for dyslexics everywhere, to start developing a coherent community and to raise awareness of a more positive profile of dyslexia.

The money raised from this appeal will be used to:

1. Pay for a graphic designer to professionally realise 'positive message' logo designs for the tee shirts.
2. Pay for the tee shirts and printing ready for sale.
3. Sell the tee shirts through our social media to enable dyslexics to advocate our more positive dyslexia vision
4. To utilise monies earned from the tee shirts to design and print more tee shirts that will enable us to support more dyslexics
5. We will also be asking dyslexics who follow our social media to send in their own designs for tee shirt logos.
6. If we achieve our target one of these designs will be used as part of this campaign

This is part of a larger fundraising effort to diversify and grow as an organisation. Dyslexia Pathways CIC is planning to open a new dyslexia centre to support dyslexics in Fife and across the world Its an ambitious project but I believe we have the team and support to achieve our goal. This is the start of a social movement that will raise awareness of our more positive vision of dyslexia.
Please come and listen to some music by Unique Dyslexic musicians at our Soundcloud, page just follow the link..

https://soundcloud.com/groups/dyslexia-musicians-group

PS please support or share our Indiegogo Crowd Funding appeal:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/unique-dyslexic--2/x/9774884

If 3500 people each contribute only £1  we can achieve our crowd funding target.

ta for reading

Steve

Beautiful week end weather and other Dyslexia Pathways CIC / Unique Dyslexic news.

The weekend:

Had a great restful week end in the sun here in Glenrothes in Fife. Saturday we had a great family and friends bbq in our back garden. Had a fab day laughing, eating and generally catching up. Four generations of the family were there. It was a nice restful day away from work.

 

 
On Sunday we took a leisurely drive to St Monans in Fife for the opening of one of Dyslexia Pathways CIC directors new business Forever Beautiful. I wish Lecia and every success with her venture.

St Monans a beautiful little hamlet on the coast of Fife

The Forever Beautiful Beauty Salon / refuge

Lecia on the left and Carolynn on the right. Both directors of Dyslexia Pathways CIC

Crowd Funding:

Last week was a very busy week for me promoting our Unique Dyslexic Crowd Funding appeal. It runs for 60 days and we are hoping to raise £3.500 for a new venture. Its all about enabling dyslexics to promote / advocate for a more positive profile of dyslexia.

Here is a link to our Unique Dyslexia Crowd Funding page in Indiegogo. Please visit our page and if you like what you see please contribute, Every contribution, no matter how small, will enable us to achieve our target. 

The aim of #UniqueDyslexic is to promote and

support the creative talents of dyslexics across the

word. Please share this with your contacts and

enable us to make our appeal a success. Just click on

 the link below to visit our Indiegogo crowd funding

page.
 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/unique-dyslexic--2/x/9774884

 

If you like what you see please donate or share amongst your contacts and help make our crowd funding appeal a success. Many thanks in advance.

Every contribution, even £1 will enable us to reach our target. If 3500 people contribute just £1 we can succeed.

Other news:

On Friday I went up to St Andrews University to meet their business manager and senior lecturer about my design for a new dyslexia app. It looks like we will be applying for a social innovation voucher over the next few weeks. More news on this later.

On Thursday I went on a Fife council supplier development programme course. It kinda demystified the whole tendering for business for me.

I believe we at Dyslexia Pathways CIC has the right team, track record and confidence to start to get involved with this.

Even got a little certificate. We will be attending more of these in the future. I also got a couple of very useful new contacts that will help us with developing our new dyslexia centre.

Many thanks for reading

regards

Steve

PS If anyone is willing to volunteer their time to support us in promoting our crowd funding please contact me.

Please come and visit our new pinterest page:

https://uk.pinterest.com/raelthing/

Accessible version of our Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding appeal

Hi and welcome blog readers

An accessible version of our Unique Dyslexic Crowd Funding Appeal. Please share across your social media or consider donation to our Crowd Funding......even  £1 would be helpful. Just click on the link below.

Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding page

Many thanks for watching

regards

Steve

News news news from Dyslexia Pathways CIC and Unique Dyslexic and nothing about it is on the election

 

Good morning all. Yesterday saw the launch of our Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding appeal. Some of you may already know that Unique Dyslexic is a Dyslexia Pathways CIC project. Dyslexia Pathways CIC was the first dyslexia focussed community interest company social enterprise in the world.  We have had one contribution already and a big thanks to Jill Mappin for her for that it is very much appreciated.

We promote dyslexia in terms of a difference that reflect the diversity inherent within humanity. The world would be a poorer place if it were not for dyslexic creativity, ingenuity, empathy and dyslexic entrepreneurs etc. We have made  positive contributions to the whole of society in fact only most of us do not hear about them.

Anyway here is a link to our appeal
Unique Dyslexic crowd funding appeal

Please share it if you can or better still contribute and enable us achieve our target. Either way many thanks for reading.

Dyslexia Pathways CIC mentioned in this European academic paper

 

Creating Communities: Local, National and Global Selected papers from the fourteenth Conference of the Children’s Identity and Citizenship in Europe Academic Network London: CiCe 2012

 

Below is the quote:

“A limited proportion of those eligible have benefited

from access to disability support funding as a result

 of being put through unsupportive procedures that

 contradict the wisdom behind enhanced support

provisions for disabled students.

The national strategy for individuals with learning

disabilities is both aspirational and inclusive stating

, “all people with a learning disability are people first

 with the right to lead their lives like any others, with

 the same opportunities and responsibilities, and to

 be treated with the same dignity and

 respect” (Department of Health 2009).

However, in order to facilitate the delivery of these

aspirational objectives, a clearer sense of purpose

 with regards to putting in place delivery mechanisms

 that allow individuals with learning disabilities to

utilize the support that is available is essential. There

 are numerous CICS who have succeeded in

 providing an intermediation function developing

 pathways that assist individuals with disabilities to

 access support to engage in academic courses and

 vocational qualifications.

"These include Dyslexia Pathways CIC, All Inclusive Disability Consultants CIC and Acute Need CIC who have all led the way for social inclusion for those within the disabled community looking to access support to enhance and develop their skillset. There continues to remain an urgent need for person centered planning rather than relying on generic mechanism for all types of learning disabilities."

I think most people know my position on dyslexia.

That is dyslexia is a difference that reflects the

 diversity inherent within humanity. But it’s still cool

read that what we are doing is actually being noticed.

Dyslexia Pathways CIC was probably the first

 dyslexia focussed Community Interest Company in

the world. We are a company limited by guarantee

 also but we must have social aims and plough and

 profit back into the company. We have no shareholders at all.

When I founded Dyslexia Pathways CIC I felt

the social enterprise business model fitted in best

with our social model of dyslexia ethos and vision. It

was not an easy route to follow because at that time

 CICs were in their embryonic stage. 

2014 was our best ever year. Our Unique Dyslexic

Get Creative project was very successful as was our

 Unique Dyslexic Celebration of Creativity. Which,

incidentally, was the first event of its kind to be held

 in Scotland, possibly in the UK.

The project was all run by volunteers, including

myself, together with some great partner

organisation. It was certainly the most challenging

 project I have ever put together.

I also completed a free 20 weeks business incubator

course with Acorn Enterprise with was a brilliant

 experience for me. I met with a lot of fab people on

 that course and learned so much.

It opened my eyes to bigger dreams, bigger targets

 and that is why we at Dyslexia Pathways CIC and

 Unique Dyslexic want to open a dyslexia centre here

 in Fife.

Last year was a difficult year for me though as half

way through the year I had a heart attack which put

 me out of action with regards working for two

months. But I am up and running again stronger and

 more focussed than ever. 

 

many thanks for taking the time to read my blog

regards

 

Steve

 

Launch of our Unique Dyslexic crowd funding appeal

Good morning all. Today sees the launch of our Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding appeal. Some of you may already know that Unique Dyslexic is a Dyslexia Pathways CIC project. Dyslexia Pathways were probably the first dyslexia focussed community interest company social enterprise in the world.

We promote dyslexia in terms of a difference that reflect the diversity inherent within humanity. The world would be a poorer place if it were not for dyslexic creativity, ingenuity, empathy and dyslexic entrepreneurs etc. We have made  positive contributions to the whole of society in fact only most of us do not hear about them.

Anyway here is a link to our appeal

Unique Dyslexic crowd funding appeal

Please share it if you can or better still contribute and enable us achieve our target. Either way we thank you just for taking the time to read this blog.

regards

Steve McCue

crowd funding news

Good morning from Glenrothes in Fife Scotland. Hope everyone out there in blog land  are keeping well. The sun is streaming through the window here. Might get out there and mow the front garden later this morning.

The big news for us is the launch of the Unique Dyslexic Crowd funding appeal on Monday. The basic idea is the enable dyslexics themselves to advocate for a more positive profile of dyslexia based around the social model of dyslexia.

We say that dyslexia is a difference that reflects the diversity inherent within humanity. I think we have to remember the world be a poorer place if it were not for dyslexic vision, ingenuity, problems solving abilities, creativity, empathy and entrepreneurship.

#vivaladifference #uniquedyslexic

The money raised from this appeal will be used to:

1. Pay for a graphic designer to professionally realise 'positive message' logo designs for the tee shirts.
2. Pay for the tee shirts and printing ready for sale.
3. Sell the tee shirts through our social media.
4. To utilise monies earned from the tee shirts to design and print more tee shirts and other items.
5. We will also be asking dyslexics who follow our social media to send in their own designs for tee shirt logos. One of which could be used as part of this campaign.

We would like to see the development of a global dyslexia focussed social movement run by dyslexics for the benefit of all dyslexics. One that challenges an ole medical model profile of dyslexia that tells us our brains do not work properly, that we dyslexics are broken in some way.

If we manage to raise any money over out target it will be used to help us achieve our goal of opening a new dyslexia centre here in Fife. One that will focus on dyslexia and creativity, dyslexia and supporting dyslexics here in Fife and be totally environmentally friendly.

Below is a link that will give you a preview of the campaign:

http://www.indiegogo.com/project/preview/2e942a8e

Other news I have just completed a social model of dyslexia training package for the directors of Dyslexia Pathways CIC. I am planning to give the training sometime in the last week of this month.

anyway that's enough from me

many thanks for taking the time to read my blog

Steve

A different, more positive, way forward for dyslexics

All children have an innate  desire to learn but why and how do many dyslexic kids get turned off from education and learning?

We need to break the old paradigm of dyslexia being a specific learning difficulty. It has nothing positive to say to dyslexics or about dyslexia.

All it does is shackle us to negative sterotypes that are the real things that disable us. Dyslexia is a difference that represents the diversity inherent within humanity.

We dyslexics need an education system that enables us to learn within an inclusive learning environment.

One which would benefit and would be beneficial for all kids in any classroom. What we need are teachers who can provide inclusive learning opportunities within a classroom.

We need teacher training to provide teachers with the skiils they need to do this. We also need to give teachers the time to develop the learning materials that would enable them to do this. I dont blame teachers.

I blame politicians who are more concerned with league tables than they are with inclusion and enabling kids to succeed at school according to their abilities.

SCHOOL (ANXIOUS) SITUATIONS"Fontana (1995) suggests that children starting school ‘may find an apparent lack of ability means that they tend to receive less teacher approval and praise than other children’.

Trying hard, asking for help and not receiving any, can cause children enormous frustration, according to Edwards (1994).

It is important for teachers to recognise the frustration that dyslexics feel in classrooms through their inability to express their ideas in written form; inability to read books of interest (rather than for their reading age) and having to work considerably harder than their peers to attain the same achievement level, according to Thomson (1996).

When there is a basic mismatch between curriculum content and the needs of the dyslexic (e.g. reading/writing/spelling), there is ‘accelerating failure for increasing numbers of students’, according to Green (1996, p2). Hales (1995) suggests that there is strong evidence to suggest that dyslexics are more disturbed by criticism.

Hales found that dyslexics experience considerable amounts of criticism at school"

I realise this is old research but how much have things changed since this was done?