First NCIL Conference Experience 

Last week, I attended my first National Council on Independent Living annual conference in Washington DC. I received a Youth Scholarship to attend, and didn’t do much research beforehand. Therefore, I wasn’t sure just what to expect. However, having been to the conference, I can say that I have mixed feelings toward it. While the participants were energetic about their cause and were welcoming towards new members, I felt that a lack of training for new members as well as a misperception of youth hampered the group’s efforts.

I flew into DC on Tuesday night, the night before the conference began. On the official schedule, the only things going on that day were a “Pre-Conference” and an “Orientation Session”, neither of which I knew anything about. Therefore, I thought it was ok to skip them; my scholarship didn’t cover the Pre-Conference anyway. However, I realized later that the Pre-Conference was the main youth event. Therefore, the youth who had gotten the scholarship to attend missed out on the most relevant session to them. During the opening ceremony, the youth of NCIL were praised for their hard work; work that excluded the winners of the scholarship.

Throughout the conference, participants were emphasizing various bills that they wanted passed by the House or Senate. These included Bill 1356 and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, as well as the reauthorization of the Rehab Act.  The general message promoted to the conference was to tell Senators and members of Congress to support these pieces of legislation. The only problem was that the content of these bills was never explained. Not only that, we weren’t told about the views of the opposition. Therefore, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my lawmakers about the bills. If they asked a question about a bills content, I wouldn’t be able to answer it. I also couldn’t counter the opposition’s argument. For these reasons, I actually chose not to do legislative visits on Capitol Hill. In fact, very few of the youth at the conference visited their lawmaker. To reverse this trend, I think that there needs to be more education about the bills at the conference, at well as opposing views, so that participants can have something substantial to say to lawmakers. In my experience, promoting a bill works best when you can say how it will personally affect you. This isn’t possible unless you know the content of the bill.