Gabriela Brimmer

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Gabriela Brimmer, "Gaby", (September 12, 1947 - January 2, 2000), a writer and activist for persons with disabilities, was born in Mexico as a daughter of Austrian Jewish immigrants. Gaby contracted cerebral palsy at birth and since childhood learned to act in a world that does not tolerate diversity. Brimmer's nurse, Florencia Morales, was largely responsible for teaching her to communicate.

[edit] Education and early life

In 1955, she was enrolled into a rehabilitation center's elementary school where a teacher recognized her talent with words and recommended that she become a writer. In 1967, Brimmer entered a regular school. Her Language Arts teacher was a poet who also persuaded her to write. That very same year she started to write poems. The first time her mother read one of her poems she was deeply moved, cried and asked her to keep them all so a book could be published. Brimmer could only type on the typewriter with a toe from the left foot, the only part of her body she could control. In 1971, she was accepted into the Social and Political Sciences department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico as a Sociology Major, but did not graduate.

[edit] Foundation Gabriela Brimmer

Gaby founded an organization of people with disabilities, known as ADEPAM, and she was an active participant in numerous other organizations. Bremmer labored greatly for the full participation of people with disabilities and at the same time managed to dedicate time to her writing of poetry. Brimmer was regarded as one who enjoyed a moving sensitivity and a strength that stemmed from the depths of her soul. Observers of her life commented that she did not think of herself as an "outstanding personality," even when people could not hide their astonishment in seeing her do the things she did. Simply, she used to say, "life makes me to do it." Her message to people with disabilities was to rethink their ways of living by forgetting the limits imposed by others.

Brimmer's life was chronicled in the film Gaby: A True Story.