The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a celebration of how far the community has come and a challenge for where to go in the future.
That's according to Dr. Jeff Preston, who spoke to about 100 people at the Lambton College Event Centre Thursday on living with a rare neuromuscular myopathy.
As a disability advocate, Dr. Preston's research aims to dispell myths on what persons with disabilites are supposed to look like.
He says the word disability is defined as "lack of ability."
"Everybody has things that they aren't able to do well," says Dr. Preston. "I'm really bad with math for example. That's probably more of a disability for me than muscular distrophy.
"The reality is that we use 'disability' as a segregating term. We clump people into groups, the disabled and the non-disabled, but I think that's doing a real disservice."
Thursday's event, hosted by Lambton College students and the City of Sarnia, aims to increase public awareness and acceptance of people with disabilities.
Other speakers at the event included musician Jeff Poolton, who was born with cerebral palsy, Brianne Jourdin and her daughter Kenadie, who lives with primordial dwarfism.
