Pablo Pineda at FCC

In November 2017 we held the #EnPositivo conference, in which we had the opportunity to listen to Pablo Pineda (Málaga, 1974), a diversity consultant for the Adecco Foundation and the first European university student with Down syndrome. Pablo shared with us his life experience around disability. During these two days, Pablo was not alone, he was accompanied by Gustavo, Ruth and Guillermo, FCC ambassadors on disability matters.


WHAT IS #ENPOSITIVE DISABILITY?

Life indicates us with social labels that define what our life will be like as soon as we are born. I don't like the word collective, I don't like the diversity that segregates or differentiates, I don't like the norm that turns my condition, my identity into a rarity.

 

I am Pablo Pineda and I am proud to be from Malaga, to have values that my parents taught me, to have learned to love life.
I am proud of having made an effort when it seemed that it was not worth it, of having defended Human Rights,
to prepare for life, not to shut up when they asked me for silence. I am proud to look contempt in the eye and not let him
to act, to laugh at myself, to find meaning in my life and to be a happy person.
 
 
  Many people spend their lives looking for a meaning in life. Today more than ever I am proud to have Down syndrome
and to give a voice to millions of people around the world who feel the harshness of discrimination, the insult that categorizes and belittles.
A single chromosome has given my life meaning. I currently work at the Adecco Foundation defending the rights of women
People with disabilities. It is my platform, it is my profession and it is my mission in life.

 
 
People with disabilities have historically been excluded from social and public life, set aside and rejected.
This stigma has marked us negatively, making us exclusively "disabled" before even people.
Where is our talent, our values and attitudes, our passions, dreams and especially ... our dignity?
 
 
Through #EnPositivo disability, I want to help you transform the way you see disability. It does not consist in hiding a reality that
Sometimes it is difficult and even painful, it is to value those positive aspects that people also have
with disabilities and that, sometimes, as a consequence of the disability, are enhanced.
 
 
Let's stop seeing the limitations and put the focus on talent.
 
By Pablo Pineda Ferrer
"If it weren't Down syndrome, I'd be grayer"