The Nubian Message had the opportunity to interview Best Buddies at North Carolina State University President Riley Doyle, a fourth-year student majoring in nutritional sciences.

Doyle said, “The goal of Best Buddies is to form one-on-one friendships with individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities.”

Best Buddies is an international nonprofit organization with different chapters and clubs at high schools and colleges throughout the country. Best Buddies was established as the first social and recreational program for people with intellectual disabilities in the nation on Jan. 19, 1989. The NC State Chapter of Best Buddies was chartered in 2018 and is the largest collegiate chapter in North Carolina.

Doyle said she has served in Best Buddies for all four years while at NC State and has been involved with Best Buddies for 10 years now.

Doyle explained how Best Buddies pairs people, saying, “Most of them are around 18 to 30 — around our age — and then anyone who ages out of that are in a citizens community where they focus on life skills. And the main thing is making sure that people have a community.”

Along with building community, accessibility could look many different ways. One of the questions that came up during the interview was what true accessibility looks like.

Doyle highlighted the importance of using inclusive language, saying, “One of the main things that we try to do with all of our NC State students — at the beginning of the year, we do a mandatory volunteer training on how to use inclusive language. So person-first communication.”

There has historically been a stigma against those who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. When addressing accessibility as a whole one of the most important aspects is addressing the human-to-human connection. Inclusive language that acknowledges the human first goes a long way.

Doyle also highlighted the need for ADA-compliant spaces, saying, “A lot of times we advocate for having spaces that are accessible for our people, a lot of them have physical disabilities where they’re on wheelchairs or walkers and making sure that everything’s ADA accessible.”

Doyle also went over some of the events that the club participates in and the impact that those events have. One major event she mentioned is the friendship walk the club holds yearly. She said the walk is also a fundraiser and said it went very well last year.

The club hosts monthly events to help build community. A notable event she mentioned was sports day, saying, “We have members of the NC State athletic teams come and kick a ball around. They talk about what it’s like to be an athlete at State. And a lot of them like going to their sports games. So it’s cool to actually see them outside of the game aspect, and get to know the people they like to watch.”

On a community level, the nonprofit helps with professional connections and development. Doyle explained how Host Sites are used to form partnerships with others in the community and provide greater resources and events. She said, “Host sites are community members we kind of form a partnership with, they’ll recommend people to us and we can recommend people to them.”

She also mentioned the Miracle League of the Triangle, a volunteer sports league for children and adults with disabilities. “So, anyone who’s kind of looking into, doing anything with athletics, I will recommend them a lot, or if any of them are struggling with job placements we have someone who looks over us nationally, that I could send them out to and they could get those resources,” Doyle said

“We also have yearly conferences where they can do leadership training. A couple of years ago, we had a class where members could get a certificate for leadership,” she said.

When asked about her experience being in Best Buddies, Doyle said, ”It’s definitely one of the things that’s made the biggest impact on my life. It makes me think every time I go somewhere, I always want to be as inclusive as I can. I’ve made some of my best friends through it. My actual buddy that I was paired with one-on-one from State is like the coolest person ever. I’m actually running a marathon in a month to raise money for his Special Olympics team.”

Best Buddies has an interest form available for students who want to join.