Everyone is equal online!
Tanja is 26 years old, is doing a master's degree in German and comparative literature at the University of Bochum, has brightly colored hair, is internet savvy, likes to read and likes to go out for a drink with friends. A typical student. The only difference is that she rolls through life and has had a speech impediment since birth. Because of this, she repeatedly comes across prejudices in her everyday life. That's exactly what her blog Rollifräulein is about, as well as all the other things that move her. She wants to expose people to their own prejudices and give insight into how disabled people suffer from such underlying prejudices.
Tanja loves the internet, she blogs, she tweets and, as she says, is online 24 hours a day. Because there she is like everyone else and her disability doesn't matter. Offline it often happens that other people talk to the person accompanying her rather than to her or treat her like a small child. Both are unjustified, just because Tanja sits in a wheelchair and speaks slowly doesn't mean that she is also mentally slow. Because the exact opposite is the case, her mind works just like that of any other 26 year old.
When asked what her disability is all about, the student usually answers that she held her breath for too long before she was born and her brain then went on a lifelong strike on motor skills. And so she sits in a wheelchair and can only move her speech muscles slowly, which makes her sound a bit strange. Tanja is fully aware of this and deals with it openly. Firstly, you quickly learn how she speaks and she has no problem with people asking three times, emphasizes the 26-year-old.
However, she gets angry when she is considered stupid because of her motor difficulties. And unfortunately that happens far too often; for example, she was once asked in a job interview whether she could read and write at all. A pretty outrageous question, considering that she had sent a written application before the interview saying that she was studying German. And she is also affected by the fears other people have of contact with her. This has gotten better over the years, but it still often happens that people talk to the person accompanying them rather than to themselves.
She remembers her school days as particularly bad; she changed schools several times. At first she went to various special schools, which supported her physically, but completely under-challenged her mentally. At some point she went to a mainstream school and was from then on intellectually challenged, but also the only student in a wheelchair. Her new school built a ramp for her and the inclusion measures were already completed. Both her teachers and her classmates were overwhelmed by the new situation and looked away far too often, pretended she wasn't there, didn't notice her. Although she was never physically attacked, the interpersonal rejections left just as deep-seated marks on Tanja.
Despite everything, Tanja is glad that she went to mainstream school back then. Otherwise she would never have been able to study and would probably have felt underchallenged her entire life. What helped her back then was the Internet. There she always got the human attention that she missed in the real world. And even today the Internet is her medium, it is where she feels comfortable, where she can be who she is, without all the prejudices. And she knows how to use the advantages of the Internet. She recently won an Interrail trip through Europe for the summer of 2014 and, with the help of a crowdfunding platform, she is now collecting money to then turn her experiences into a travel guide. So if you like Tanja's blog and would like to read more from her, then you can support her project here .
You would also like to become blogger of the month or know someone who should be. Then simply write a short message to rademacher@uniglobale.de
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Everyone is equal online! Tanja is 26 years old, is doing a master's degree in German and comparative literature at the University of Bochum, has brightly colored hair, is internet savvy, likes to read and likes to go out for a drink with friends. A typical student. Only with the small difference that she rolls through life and has one from birth
