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