Welcome you all to our fabulous Just Post roundtable for August. Every month bloggers tell us about blog posts they read or wrote about social justice and Jen and Mad (and since this month also Hel and me) compile a list and post it together with a little introduction.
I’m still a little overwhelmed by the task to represent a whole continent though it’s a small one. I can need your help there. Since most of you can’t read German I have refrained of adding German blog posts to the list. But I plan to write about something I found in German blogs about social justice every month.
In one of my own recent posts I have boasted about the German health care system. Well, the story I read over at gedankenträger sounds quite different than that. While the German health care and social system is good, it is getting worse and worse. It is constantly being reformed and reformed with the goal of having it become more “cost-efficient”.
Moni who is writing at gedankenträger is a single mother parenting an autistic son. He just turned seven years old. After deciding to put him into school a year late because of his autism last year she had to find an appropriate school for this year. One where his needs can be met and also a school with additional daycare since primary school in Germany runs only in the mornings and she has to work for a living too. He went to preschool at a place specifically for autistic children. Since they have a school too that would have been the ideal place for him. Only it didn’t work out, obviously they preferred autistic children who speak and aren’t that complicated. Or something.
The red tape involved has been immense. None of the people she talked to communicated with each other and although she had tried finding a suitable school since the year before she didn’t know where he would go until almost the last moment. There are very inadequate resources for autistic children even in Berlin which is the biggest city in Germany. Finally she found a school for mental handicapped children that took him and was granted financing for a helper during school hours. But then she wasn’t (and her son needs to be supervised so he won’t run away on his own). And then, surprise, she was again but not as much as the first time.
I hope very much for her that his being in school will run smoother than the process of finding one. And that she will be able to have him adequately cared for while she is at work. If you want to read her story you can do so at “Schule: der Saga dritter Teil”. And you can see a picture of her son at his very first day of school at “big day“. (Her English is excellent by the way, so don’t hesitate to leave comments.)
For more cute pictures you can look at the “Faces of Autism“-flickr pool.
So, here is the list of Just Posts for August and the people who contributed. And you should definitely check out what Jen, Mad and Hel are writing about this month too.
The writers
Bon at Crib Chronicles with Blessings
Crazymumma with If I’m going to talk the talk…
Cecilieaux with blogging last word, who is anglo, people of 1066 and portal for billionaires
Jangari with more on squandered funds and stuart highway robbery
Maypole with false hope and i know what it means to love
Denguy with boyo man
Jen with what a long strange trip it’s been, national news and side by side
Alejna with some of my best friends are republicans
KC with colorless ii
NoMotherEarth with about a boy
Urban-Urchin with disposable people
Emily with miscarriage of justice
Kevin with Jena 6
MBT with things you get nekkid for
Vera with dominator tentacles
Packaging girlhood with increased suicide rates among teen girls
Lex with compassion
Kitchen Fire with postscript
Aliki with disparity
Gwen with feed your head
From the Front Lines with philanthropy thursday
Flutter with the morning commute and What Should Flutter Cook?
Stumbling and Mumbling with you know you’re a conservative when and the tangible harm of inequality
Izzy with forgive my bluntness but i hate george bush
11D with bob herbert morphs into david brooks
MOTR with enough
Janet with my grass roots are showing
Eden with some animals are more equal than others
Acukiki at Sticking to the Point with Follow Your Dreams
African Fragments with Sisters Can Do it For Themselves
Christine at Running on Empty When I Grow Up
Ewe with Baaaaad Party, Baaaaad Party and A Sunday Not-So-Funny…
Fortune and Glory with What fills us up makes us whole again and Today as I hold my head…
Gary with Homeless
Gettin’ it wrong with Twisty Slides, Twisted Logic and Olivia
Jen at One Plus Two with Teaching Fish to Swim, I Was Interviewed by National News, side by side and What a Long, Strange Trip Its Been
La vie en Rose with It’s the body…always the body
Latoya Peterson at Racialicious with 4th Generation Racist: Can you be anti racist if you’re anti-white?
Lia with Pensioned Serenity
Maddie at Persisting Stars with Someone with sky and birds in his heart
Nina Smith with Books Review: On My Own Two Feet
Open Synergy with Darwin’s Jihad-A Luta Continua
Snigdha Sen with Streets Are For Walking, Stop Stalking
Suzanne Reisman with The Real Story: Attack Of The Predatory Lenders On Single Women Homeowners
Susanne at creative.mother.thinking with Housework for Children and Being Sick Shouldn’t Make you Bankrupt
Thailand Gal with Katrina put me over the edge, Repeat ch-ch, repeat-ch-, and Your silence will not protect you
Tired Mommy with Learning what we live
The World’s Yours To Live!! with The World of Peace
Wayfayer Scientista with Seasonal Goodbyes and Working against cultural biogotry
The readers
Jess
Thordora
Cecilieaux
Chani
Alejna
KC
Christine
Catherine
Aliki
Sarah
Karen
Mad
Jen
Hel
Susanne
Sober Briquette
Thanks for sharing this story Susanne and welcome aboard.
thank you, Susanne. Am very glad you’ve decided to join us.
I’m reading an interesting book on an autistic child published in 1947.
Although the child is clearly autistic it seems that in 1947 the concept of autism did not yet exist.
It is interesting how the therapist figures out the best way to proceed even though there are no references for her to follow.
What is also interesting is that the methods she ends up following are very similiar to those I read about in a book on autism published in 2006.
ps. It is wonderful to sit at this table with you.
I am glad you’ve come onboard with this. Thank you for lending your voice.
I am so glad you are a part of this…
Thank you susanne- I’m so glad you are a part of this.
I have a good friend here in the UK who happens to be German (her husband is Scottish). Her lovely boy has had some developmental delays, and she’s had to wait wait wait for help and treatment constantly, and she’s still waiting for speech evaluation for him (he doesn’t speak and he’s MF’s age). She’s at the point where she’s been thinking about taking him back to Germany to get help, even though she said they’re cutting services left and right there as well.
I just don’t understand the short-sightedness of it all by these governments. Don’t they understand that addressing developmental delays, etc., earlier in a child’s life can make all the difference in the world? And at a much less cost and with a better outcome than addressing them later… So depressing sometimes.
Glad you have joined forces with the unstoppable Mad and Jen