This is the Project Report written by William, Vanessa, Darryl and Cheryl that describes the project and the set of Key Messages they would like us all to think about. See also the companion Project Report written by the academic research team that describes why the research was important and how the Storytellers and researchers with a learning disability have research and research methods beyond the narrow scripts we are used to hearing (#6851).

In the Mean As Library you will also find: Seven stories rich with the colour and vitality of real lives re-presented in ways storytellers decided upheld their mana/dignity, like songs and letters and pūrākau, and Recordings of those stories by actors who wanted to give them a voice self-advocates would recognise.

About the "Mean As!" project: Relationships and sexuality are at the very heart of life quality. Although living and loving the way you want is generally accepted as critical to the identity, hauora and oranga (health and wellbeing) of all people, people with a learning disability often find themselves excluded from these very ordinary experiences and expectations.

Although a lot has been written about the relational and sexual lives of people with a learning disability, very little has been written by them. In the absence of stories that are recognisably their own, we have come to know people with a learning disability and what they can and can’t do, from the story telling of those who exercise power over them. People with a learning disability tell us that this silence has meant they are routinely prevented from talking about, learning about and ultimately enjoying the same sexual rights as every other citizen.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, when people say “Mean As!” they usually mean something is pretty “awesome!” In the “Mean As! Project, eight story tellers with a learning disability had an opportunity to “speak back” to the way we have been taught to read their lives by telling their own stories of relationship and sexuality, their own way. The set of co-developed stories were also shared with William, Vanessa, Darryl and Cheryl, four emerging researchers with a learning disability given space to listen, interpret and respond to the stories they heard with a set of Key Messages. (From the website). Record #6852