[Music] welcome everyone my name is Arion Williams and this is let's talk about a GV this month's topic is disabilities employment awareness month today I have a Johnny Lewis here with me who is a member of golden Valley's diversity equity and inclusion Commission and is a member of the Life Works board of directors thank you for being here with us a Johnny thanks for having me man it it it's our pleasure for sure so I have a few questions for you if you don't mind answering I don't mind all right awesome thank you um first question I have for you is um do you have a disability yes I do okay can you tell us about it my disability attention def disorder that means I can't pay attention a long time on one task gotcha gotcha okay um does this disability affect your ability to work um in some ways but other ways you just have to learn how to make it work yeah I hear you do you see uh a lot of people with disabilities in your work environment I do but I don't go and what's your disability because it's I of respect for them right right right right I just go talk to them like a nor person right that makes sense to me do you feel like you're you see a lot of people with disabilities in the workplace or would you like to see more there's pretty much some people in the workplace with disabilities but I like to see more because I think disability be the new Workforce that people need to go get yeah yeah I agree how do you feel your employers could or Employers in general right like not your employer but how do you feel Employers in general can um advocate for people with disabilities how do you how can they improve their the work situation I mean right now there there a shortage of job coaches and around the world I mean and there there shorts of PCA workers right now I mean there's a lot of shortages right now because people are finding other jobs with more money other places yeah yeah so job coaches and PCA workers to help support people with disabilities I hear you loud and clear okay um so you know again the topic today is disability employment awareness month and I'm wondering uh does this have any impact on you is this something that um you as a person with a disability um when this time of the year comes around do you see people talking about it or do you hear employers discussing it I don't hear much employeers talk about it because I don't think they don't know about it and why it came around this for this month it's this for me I'm trying to go out to different companies hey I'm a person with a disability I'm working at my company and I'm doing the same job as a normal person could do yeah and then we just need to show them yeah I agree yeah we we need to show them um and this needs to be talked about more right there are people with disabilities who are in the workplace and doing well for themselves right um and the fact that you say that you haven't heard people talk about it um means that one I feel like we're doing a good thing here just by having this conversation but hopefully people will spread the word and make sure that people who might feel um uneasy about having the conversation feel like they can and people with disabilities in the workplace hopefully feel like they can speak up about the things they need because job coaches pcas um accessibility uh shoot there there's many ways that we could be improving the quality of somebody's work life um you know there was something profound you said to me um on our way in here today you said that not all uh disabilities are physical ones are things that you can see do you mind speaking about that at all there's certain disabilities that are invisible to the mind that mind is invisible so you can't really see it's all it's in my mind right and some people have I can't say some people don't have any some people have physical disability that you could see right people in wheelchairs I mean I understand why they're in a wheelchair because they can't get the proper healthc care right and there's people are blind mhm I mean there's many more but this so so how can we how can people be better advocates for people with these disabilities considering that there are people who might have physical or mental or emotional um disabilities how can people be more supportive I mean any place right now I mean person with disability want to be talk to like a normal human being they want to be to look down like they're out here for charity work and it's this I just think people with disability want to be treated like everyone else wants to be treated and have the same AR equal opportunities in the world as anyone else yeah yeah I don't think that's asking much at all not at all well um you know Johnny I I really appreciate you answering my questions did you have any questions or anything you wanted to say um just I know going is a good place they're trying to work on different issues I mean that's why the diversity Equity commission is doing right now I mean if you have any questions you guys come to the commission I'll be there you can ask me yeah there you heard it from you heard it from the man himself you can go to uh golden Valley's uh uh Golden Valley MN h.gov and look up our diversity equity and inclusion Commission check out the times come through we're doing a lot of good work a Johnny uh is is a member of the commission the man said invited you to ask him himself so thank you appreciate your time with johnnyks um you you are a standup guy for doing this and and a standup guy for advocating for people with disabilities y thank [Music] you