Meet Lily Bailey

We were lucky to catch up with Lily Bailey recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lily, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I was born with a physical disability, For awhile, I was ashamed of that, but now I realize it’s the fuel I need to change the world. My disability limits my mobility, not my cognitive ability, and not my ability to speak. One of the biggest assumptions I have faced when using any of my mobility aids in public is that my disability affects both of these things. I find when I am out in public, people tend to talk to the person that I am with instead of me because they assume that I am incapable. Anytime I encounter ableism like this or in any other form, I just think to myself that one day I’ll prove them wrong. In those moments, I feel small and I don’t respond or prove them wrong, but in my mind, I hold out hope that one day I will help provide the education that shows them how wrong they were to assume incompetence. My resilience comes from all of these people, the people who are ignorant enough to assume anyone’s disability, the people that think they know what I can and can’t do. My resilience comes from a drive to make these people see that I am so much more than my disability and so is every other disabled person out there.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As you can probably imagine, growing up with a disability involves a lot of self advocacy. I was never really good at advocating for myself–that was a learning curve for me. I eventually figured it out and I’m a better self-advocate today. I am now 19 years old and I am going into my second year of college. Adapting to life on campus was a major transition for me. I had to learn a lot about how to advocate for myself when it came to housing and other necessities. I made friends on campus with the only two other wheelchair users there. For a while, I set up meetings about accessibility with the president of the college as well as other administration, and they were very good about listening to our concerns and instituting change. Even though our campus was willing to work with us on accessibility, I felt like we needed to bring more disability awareness and culture to our school. In November of last year, my friends and I formed the Saint Joseph’s College of Maine Disability Awareness Club with the mission of raising awareness for accessibility issues across all Maine academic communities by shining light on all variation of disabilities. Throughout the last year, we have hosted events on campus to promote this mission, we even got our own table at Maine’s Disability Pride event. As the president of this club, I have gotten many opportunities as well. I was invited to join my school’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee and I have done some work with Disability Rights Maine to provide trainings on our campus.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’ve developed a certain level of empathy over the years that I think has been really helpful in getting me to where I am now. For me, my empathy has derived from spending time with people from all different walks of life. My own experiences have shown me that some people just aren’t aware of what others are going through. I have become a close confidant for a number of my friends and I have gotten to here some of the things that they have been dealing with. This just shows me that everyone is going through something that you probably can’t even imagine, so you should listen with an open mind and an open heart. I think the biggest reason I developed the skill was because I surrounded myself with so many different people. So my advice in developing empathy would be to surround yourself with different types of people, I know that it can be validating to surround yourself with people that are the same as you, but I think that one of the best ways to develop empathy is to make friends with people from different cultures and backgrounds. I think that another very important skill that I have is organization. I have been involved with so many different things over the years and being able to keep it all organized is really helpful. My advice on developing good organizational habits is just keeping updated lists and calendars. I think another skill that has been important in my life is just being up for anything. Obviously say no when you’re involved in too much so you don’t get in over your head, but I wouldn’t be doing a lot of the things I am doing without getting out of my comfort zone a little. My advice for anyone looking to develop the skill is just to get out of your comfort zone, it’s helpful for growth, and who knows, you might like it.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

As I previously mentioned, I am the president of the Saint Joseph’s College of Maine Disability Awareness Club. I would like to see our club partner with other schools across the state and beyond to create more clubs like this, We heave already made connections with some other schools across the state, but we are looking to partner with more. So if you are reading this, and you are part of an academic community that would benefit from more disability awareness, please reach out to me via LinkedIn or through our clubs Instagram: @sjcdisabilityclub. Having a club like this is an amazing opportunity for everyone at your school to feel like they belong and are welcomed.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/skwdjNGKZJ7J1eoc/?mibextid=LQQJ4d I don’t want this published. I just can’t get this link to go away.

Image Credits

Professional photo credit – Kevin Bennett Photography
Logo design credit – McKay Sudol
Photo 2 – Photo Credit: Jeffrey Bailey
Photo 3 – Photo Credit: Christina Wnek
Photo 4 – Sticker Design Credit: The Noun Project, Canva, Inspired by a sticker by SODAVA