Self-advocacy in the context I explain here does not mean representing yourself in court.

Self-advocacy means speaking up for yourself rather than have someone do it for you or be in control of you. It's standing up for what is right for you and being in control of yourself. It is not about being aggressive but being assertive.
It can involve campaigning to get what you want but it is generally a lot more simple than that.

If you can not communicate in the recognised usual ways yourself and have someone speak 'your' words and thoughts for you, it does not mean you are not self advocating; it means you are just using support to put across what you yourself think. You are simply using them as a medium of communication.

Self-advocacy can be done as an individual or a group.

Teddy Bear Self-advocacy Group

I became more and more sick of the way people would ask Debra about me rather than ask myself. If they did ask me, they would often look at Debra rather than me. "Don't look at her when your speaking to me" I'd say"I can speak for myself".

I was also sick of the way I would be disrespected just because I'm a teddy bear, so I thought I'd start a group for other teddy bears that suffer from the same insults to their dignity. The group runs campaigns on teddy bear issues. (See what we are up to).

Campaign "Name your Teddy Bear"

As you may know, I meet a lot of humans on my daily travels and a lot of you have teddy bears.
I am surprised to find that so many humans - usually adults - don't name their teddy bears.
Well you humans of guilty party, it's about time you considered what you would feel like if you had no name................. Well, have you thought about it? .....Well then name your teddies then.

If any of you whom I have met before with unnamed teddy bears have named their teddy bears in response, then I would be happy to hear about this if you see me again, it would be good to know our campaign makes a difference to the life of teddy bears.

Campaign "Free The Teddies"

Teddies and humans, your country needs you.

We need to spread the word, no, not the gospel but spread the word that teddies should be given their freedom. Freedom from being locked away in the loft is what this campaign is about.

There are many a teddy in this awful situation, some are alone whilst others are with others that they may not get on well with. Either way it is not fair.

Owners are mostly unaware that their once beloved teddies have a consciousness and they therefore feel abandoned and imprisoned. We need you all to spread the word that teddies are real and need freedom.

We welcome ideas from teddies and humans.

The teddy bear community is dominant of boy teddies, this is an imbalance that needs to challenged. Many a teddy, both girl and boy, want a fair balance of teddies of each gender.

This campaign aims to address this imbalance. We target teddy bear makers to make lots more girl teddies. Teddies all over the globe are taking part, it is a global campaign.
We ask humans too, to shout for this.

If anyone knows of teddy bear makers that refuse to make girl teddies, then please let us know.

Honey is a very important food source for teddy bears around the world. At the last annual general meeting, it was agreed that we start a campaign to get honey to all teddy bears in our country. Teddy bears from other countries are fighting for the same thing. In this country however, we are finding it very hard to be taken seriously. The government says, "Why should we give honey to all the teddy bears when Margaret Thatcher took away milk form the human school children".

We are still fighting this, but we could agree to a compromise of honey being made available to just neglected teddies only, but so far, are not having much luck on this either.

How many of you girl teddies just hate those silly bow things you are often forced to wear on your ears?

Although some of you may like them, not all of you do. This campaign is a fight to rid you of them if you don't want to wear them. Email me your thoughts and ideas