Isidora fights for disabled rights

If you or someone close to you has a disability, you’ll know how complicated and difficult life can be at times and how many places are not easy to access. Isidora Guzmán is 17 and lives in Santiago, the capital of Chile in South America. She calls herself an “activist for including people”. She was born with health problems and had to learn to walk with special equipment. She still finds it hard.

“At school, kids stayed away from me because of my handicap,” says Isidora. “That hurt and it made me want to make sure that other people didn’t have to suffer the kind of bullying that I did.”

A more welcoming world

When she was 13, Isidora created an app that lets people find disabled parking spaces. “With help from my IT teacher and my parents, I took on this project to put an end to these problems – or at least to make a start so that things change in Chile,” she says. “There isn’t much in this country to help people with disabilities take part fully in everyday life. There’s a lot still to do.”

And Isidora isn't stopping there. “I also wanted to help in other ways – by creating spaces in schools, colleges, in offices, cinemas, wherever, places where people with disabilities would feel comfortable and included.”

Find your place

Isidora set up an association to help her. She now has about 30 volunteers who are able to understand different people’s situations and help them a solution that suits them. Her association is called « Encuentra tu lugar ». That means « Find your place » in Spanish. She also organises workshops to help other pupils understand what it’s like to have a disability. One day, she hopes, her app can work anywhere in the world to find places where everyone can feel comfortable.

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