Tina Guenette Pedersen is the President & Founder of R.A.M.P.~Real Access Motivates Progress, and this is how her story starts; “Well, my name is Tina Pedersen. I’m 47 years old. I have two children and two grandchildren. And I was very active in my life. I was a cheer coach, dance mom, a Boy Scout leader, a football mom. Anything my kids did, I did with them tenfold.
“I’m a four-time cancer survivor-breast twice, bladder twice. And during one of my bladder cancer surgeries, it was a very minor surgery to my bladder machine, because I have a machine now that helps my bladder. During a tweak to that with a 20-minute surgery, I took a stroke to my spinal cord and woke up and never walked again. So literally, a little over five years ago, I walked into surgery and never walked again”
“So it was kind of like here’s a wheelchair, go home and figure it out. And that’s what I had to do. It took me a while. I mean, of course, I had my downtime in the frustration and just trying to get through your day to day because like I said at the time, my daughter was a senior in high school, my son was a freshman. I was her cheerleading coach for competitive cheerleading. I had to figure out how to live my life and how to make this wheelchair work and figure it out as I went along and I then threw myself into finding out as much as I could what was out there? And like I said, that’s when I decided to start an organization for other people who ended up like me.”
“In 2018, Tina was named Ms. Wheelchair Rhode Island and her advocacy of inclusion for all began. In this journey, she met many individuals with all types of disabilities and gathered insight and information for change. She was appointed to the Governor’s Commission on Disability and voted as Vice Chairwoman.”
“Tina’s foundation, R.A.M.P. -Real Access Motivates Progress, R.A.M.P.’s mission is to educate and advocate about accessibility and inclusion. We support any and all individuals with disabilities both visible and invisible, their families and support staff in creating a safe, barrier-free environment in all communities. http://rampisinclusion.com/
Tina started an initiative to provide RED BAGS to meet an unmet need, to “keep your (medical emergency) information updated easily and readily available. Not digital and easily accessible for emergency agencies with no technical issues.” Join the RED BAG movement! Be a RED BAG carrier—it could SAVE YOUR LIFE!” Learn more on her website and order here: https://www.paypal.me/RAMPisinclusion?locale.x=en_US
Tina is quite a power of example and refuses to harbor negativity and resentment, she lives her life knowing that every day is a chance to make a difference, and the time is now, ” we need to be making the people who live here now in this situation right now better and include more people”
Links!
Website: http://rampisinclusion.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RAMPorg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rampisinclusion
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramp_is_inclusion/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo6u01UIYuN7vWGEtTNsBIQ
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-guenette-pedersen-b101a018a/
Recent Articles:
https://www.abilities.com/community/ramp.html
https://www.valleybreeze.com/2018-04-25/cumberland-lincoln-area/accessibility-dignity#.XeEc1ehKhPY
http://johnstonsunrise.net/stories/my-time-to-make-a-difference,140277