1/21/09

‘Hello is Universal’

Langston Hughes celebrates Inclusion.

Jill Egle is 32 years old, an executive director of a non profit and has created a popular You Tube video. She travels the country and, perhaps most importantly, she likes herself and so do many others.

I can’t help but think if my classmates had been open to understanding me when I was 13 or 14 years old, perhaps I would have started my wonderful life a little sooner,”Egle said.

Growing up in Louisiana, Egle was labeled a “retard” in school and diagnosed with mild mental retardation. The nonprofit she leads, when first established 45 years ago, was called the Association of Retarded Citizens. The world has changed somewhat and now Egle has an Intellectual Developmental Disability and directs the Arc of Northern VA. Eglé’s video, “Can We Talk Ben Stiller,” made the rounds across the country.

“I did not have a great time in junior high or high school,” Egle told an assembly of about 100 Langston Hughes Middle School students Thursday morning, Dec 4. “I was called a

retard, made fun of and ignored,” she said. Egle urged the Langston Hughes students  to stop using the word retard, to sit with someone eating lunch alone, invite someone without many friends to an event and be open to understanding that everyone has a lot of gifts to offer.