Meet Gerald Porter, a sophomore at UW from Chicago who makes a difference once a week at Wright Middle School working with the program Eye to Eye.
Major: Creative Writing and Journalism
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Year: Sophomore
Involvement: Club water polo, Eye to Eye, Badger Herald, works at ALPS
Can you tell us a little about what Eye to Eye does?
Organization with 50 chapters across the country that pairs mentors with middle school students who have similar learning disabilities as we do through an art based curriculum to make sure that we are building their self esteem and self confidence. Through this, we are also making sure they are developing skills for self-advocacy so they are able to help themselves as they grow up with their LD (learning disability).
What would you do in a normal day with Eye to Eye?
Depending on the project, we get there, get set up, wait for our kids to come, and once we get there we get a snack and then start working on the project. While we are working, we are having conversation about what the project means and what we can take away from it.
How did you get the position as an ambassador? What was the training like to become an ambassador?
At last year’s graduation ceremony, one of the national staff members mentioned that there was a thing called Eye to Eye Diplomats, and I applied and then reapplied, but after I got it, I went to New York City and learned about how what we are doing is making our stories known to other people so that they can hear the work that we do and be inspired by it. It was pretty mentally tiring because you had to go back and think a lot. We learned about our own LD story and how we can tell it better. By doing that, we are empowering audiences and making a ripple effect, by starting one ripple with a presentation, we are reaching out more and more as we keep going.
What was the impact Eye to Eye has had on you?
The [impact] has been great. I’ve learned a lot about myself and how to work with others. I think just by working with the kids every week, it definitely makes you see that LDs affect a lot of people. At the same time, we think differently, and that means people are going to act differently and so we definitely get a wide variety of people that you work with. Just the experience that I had to see how they work and think. They are all just really great kids and it’s fun working with UW students too.
What will you be doing with Eye to Eye going forward?
I’ll be giving presentations about my LD story, and about the things that come along with having a LD, to audiences that want me to speak at their events. I know I’ll be speaking at Wright Middle School coming up in the future. They just want us to share the story and get the word out. Mainly, they want us to serve as examples of people with LDs that have not just worked through it, but work with it. We are the people who have used those self-advocacy skills that we have learned and prove that [a learning disability] is not something that will say you are not smarter than anyone else, or say that you can’t do something with your life.