An Takaoka

A fourth-year student at the University of Tsukuba, Department of Human Studies, and Disability Sciences. Born in Tokyo. Due to a type of disability called athetoid cerebral palsy, she uses an electric wheelchair and needs the assistance of helpers in all aspects of daily life. She uses an iPad as a communication tool, operating it with her elbow.

Although I was born with a disability, I attended typical schools and then entered the University of Tsukuba. I did not attend a special needs school throughout elementary, junior high, and high school. I attended what people usually call “regular schools.” It was not easy at all and there were many times when I felt the situations were unreasonable and wanted to quit. Under these circumstances, my dream was to become a screenwriter. My class together decided to make a film for the high school festival, and I was in charge of writing the script. The process of making the film was a lot of fun, and when the audience wrote on the questionnaires that the film was interesting, it made me feel appreciated in spite of my disability. This made me happy because I was always bothered by the fact that people often said, “that’s amazing despite your disability.” I began to think that I wanted to write more interesting screenplays, and I vowed at that time that I would definitely become a screenwriter.

I wanted to study films and screenplays at the university level, so I was looking for schools to apply to, but I could not find any schools that would support me with note-taking assistance in class or meal assistance at school. Originally, I was able to cover these problems with the university study support program for severely home-visit nursing care users, but I could not use the service in the municipality where I lived. At that time, I felt this was unreasonable, so I enrolled in the University of Tsukuba to learn about disabilities, welfare, and special needs education, and to find out why these unreasonable situations were happening.

In my first year after entering the university, I was able to exchange opinions with my professors and classmates, as well as attend social gatherings outside the university, where I learned a lot and increased my knowledge. However, since the coronavirus pandemic broke out in 2020, my university classes went online, and I lost the opportunity to utilize the study abroad program to the U.S. which I was supposed to go on. I had a strong sense of loneliness because my communication with people was only online. At that time, I was the chairman of the university’s school festival committee, and I was discussing things with my classmates late every day during the corona pandemic. But as a result of the pandemic the school festival was canceled, and some of my classmates felt so much loneliness and a sense of unwillingness to do anything. Some of them even became ill. Since then, I have been aware that corona is more than just a disease. I noticed it has the power to significantly break up the human spirit. I had a teaching position at the university, and the teaching training scheduled for the following year had its own problems unique to the corona disaster, such as what teaching style I would use, as well as measures to be taken to prevent corona infection, among caregivers. Discussions with my professors were underway to resolve these problems, but in the midst of these discussions, I had difficulty meeting with my classmates and could only speak with my professors during discussions, which left me alone and in a panic. In the process, my mental health broke down. I had no memories after my mental breakdown and could not envision any dreams or anything else. To tell you the truth, my mental health has only recovered in the last few months. The trigger of the recovery was that I started to enjoy watching my favorite dramas and movies. Throughout my university life, I came to think that I wanted to create a world in which children with disabilities would not have to give up on their dreams. However, I realized that before I knew it, I had given up on some of my own dreams, so I would like to pursue my dream of becoming a screenwriter. I will graduate from university next year and I would like to make next year the year I do what I can and what I want to do. I would like to be a role model for children with disabilities so that they can see that it is okay not to give up on their dreams.