Please join AWN with Ashanti Fortson and Micah Bazant for a talk on cultural work, visual art, and disability justice.

This event is part of ESRC Festival of Social Science at the University of Birmingham.

The event will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on disabled people, who have been deprioritised in pandemic planning around the world, facing discrimination in healthcare, exclusion from education and employment, and neglect, abuse, and violence both in care and in the community. The event will explore how the lived experience of disabled people can inform activism and politics to make the world a fairer and more accessible place for all.

This interactive webinar will provide an overview of the key issues faced by disabled people during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a panel discussion with four disabled activists from different countries and contexts.

• Dr. Ratan Suri, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (India)
• Hala Mahfouz, Al Hussein Society Jordan Center For Training & Inclusion (Jordan)
• Samuel Odawo, Ulemavu Research Institute (Kenya)
• Sofia Brizio, Freelance Translator/ Researcher in Publishing (UK)

There will also be time for audience discussion and Q&A. The event will be held on Zoom with live captions and British Sign Language interpretation.

Disability justice is a core issue for millions of Canadians. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many of the continuing injustices faced by Canadians with disabilities/disabled Canadians: punitive social assistance programs, substandard conditions in supportive housing, and ableist assumptions in the delivery of healthcare, to name a few.

Accessibility legislation is one important element of disability justice. Speakers in this session will detail what accessibility legislation does and why it is important. They will describe the development and implementation of accessibility legislation in Ontario and federally, as well as the current efforts to have such legislation adopted in Alberta. They will reflect on the promise and limits of law reform and invite us to consider “what else” we must do to achieve real disability justice in Canada.

Disability Justice is a movement started by and created to center disabled, Black, Indigenous, people of colour, 2SLGBTQIA+ people. Ableism encourages the centering of “normal” and “productive” and devalues disabled bodies, brains, and senses, seeing them as “invalid”, “unnatural”, and “unworthy”, leading to exclusion and oppression. Disability Justice works to move away from segregation, isolation, and ableism and move towards accessibility, equity connection, and interdependence.

Disability justice is an ongoing practice that recognizes the inherent worth of every person and sees us as whole beings with differing strengths and needs. Disability justice challenges the ways we think about, and label, bodies/minds/senses.

Increase your disability knowledge and engage in dialogue as we explore new ways of doing and perceiving, including the ten principles of disability justice and how they can be utilized in daily life. Also covered, how these practices and principles impact the daily lives of disabled people.

This course is taught by Heather (disabled, neurodivergent, queer, trans) and Harmony (disabled, queer, person of colour) who can speak to their lived experiences as well as to experiences of the broader disability and neurodivergent community.