We are proud to boast a rich diversity of people within the YUFE community. The YUFE Diverse Perspectives initiative invites members of the YUFE community to share their stories, values and beliefs and the aspects of their identity that have helped them develop into the people they are today.

Here is Tino Vodanovic’s story.

Since I was little, I always thought the greatest problem that I faced was the one caused by the fact I’m different from the majority of people. The difference in my case is that I can’t walk and I saw this as something exclusively negative. It wasn’t until I went to university and met my colleagues that I started to realise that my friends faced exactly the same problems in their lives as me, despite the fact they can walk.

All that led me to conclude that it’s not all about walking. This conclusion, together with conversations with my friends (colleagues), as well as the generally motivating climate at the university, helped me to start embracing my difference and become interested in disability research.

When I started embracing my difference, I became even more aware of the fact that every person is different in their own way. All things considered, now when I think of my difference and diversity in general, I think of an extremely powerful part of my identity from which both myself and the people that I’m surrounded by can learn a lot. In other words, I now see it as the inexhaustible source of new knowledge.