Friday 17 August 2018
1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Northeastern University School of Law
Boston, Massachusetts
United States
This forum is a pre-conference event for the biennial Disability Intersectionality Summit, which is hosted this year with the sponsorship and support of the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. (Please note: The main summit will take place this fall in October.)
The forum will focus on disability and its intersections with race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, in non-U.S. contexts, with the joint aims of U.S.-based activists/organizers/advocates learning from our counterparts outside the U.S., and building stronger connections with leaders and organizations abroad for future collaborations.
Speakers will include the following:
Sarah Jama is a Somali-Canadian community organizer from Hamilton, Ontario. She is co-founder of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) and holds a Social Sciences degree from McMaster University. Her lived experiences have fostered interests and a passion for: community engagement, disability justice, and activism.
Khairani Barokka is an Indonesian writer, poet, and artist in London, whose work has been presented extensively in twelve countries. Okka has received six residencies and multiple grants; among her honours, she was an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow for her masters, and is a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change for arts practice and research.
Kiran Anthony Foster is a mixed-race immigrant sex worker living in auckland, new zealand. a staunch prison abolitionist, anti-imperialist marxist, and disability/queer rights activist, their continued history of radical advocacy is informed by having been born into a culture of silence as an autistic, psychotic and intersex child
Freyja Haraldsdóttir is a feminist disability activist and the founder of Tabú, an intersectional feminist disability movement in Iceland. In her work for Tabú she has focused on activism around reducing violence against disabled people and building up platforms of peer support and empowerment workshops and activism for disabled people of all genders.
Finn Gardiner is a tireless disability rights advocate, primarily interested in educational equity, intersectional justice, comparative policy, and inclusive technology. He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.
Maria (Conchita) Hernandez Legorreta was born in Mexico and grew up in California. She is currently a Doctoral student at George Washington University pursuing a degree in Special Education. Conchita is founder of METAS, a non-profit organization that trains educators in Latin America that work with blind/low vision students and students with other disabilities.
Ayman Eckford is a neurodiversity, disability justice and queer activist, intersectional feminist and radical youth liberationist. They are autistic multiple neurodivergent queer Jewish refugee born in Donetsk, in the east of Ukraine, who moved to St. Petersburg, Russia after the outbreak of the civil war.
Lina Ekford is autistic bisexual woman who live in St. Petersburg, Russia. Together with her wife Ayman, she runs Autistic initiative for civil rights and a number of projects about autism and disability.
Shiri Eisner is a bisexual, genderqueer, and feminist activist and writer. She is also Mizrahi, vegan, disabled, an anarchist, a geek, a metalhead, and a crazy cat lady. She is the author of the book Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, the founder of the bi community in Israel/Occupied Palestine, and a long time organizer in various local social justice and radical left movements.
Sara M. Acevedo is an autistic mestiza, educator, and disability justice advocate born and raised in Colombia. Sara holds a Masters of Liberal Arts with a focus on Disability Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia and a PhD in Anthropology and Social Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco.
Toril Heglum is a feminist disability rights advocate who is Project Manager for Empowerment and Supported Decision-Making at Uloba, Independent Living Norway. She is also a former county elected official, and co-editor of Med Vitende Og Vilje, on disability and discrimination.
We hope to see you in Boston in August!
Access information:
We are working to ensure ASL interpretation, CART captioning, and interpretation into at least Spanish and Russian during the forum. We will also endeavor to livestream panels, with more information about livestreaming coming soon.
For attendees/participants in Boston, the building and rooms are physically accessible, with accessible and gender-neutral bathrooms available.
Attendees/participants are asked to arrive scent/fragrance free for the health, safety, and comfort of fellow attendees/participants. Similarly, no FLASH photography will be allowed for the health, safety, and comfort of fellow attendees/participants. There will also be a sensory break room available on-site.
Parking is available within 0.5 to 1.0 miles distance from the site. Public transit is accessible within 0.2 miles distance.
*This event will be ticketed*
You may also pay what you can at the door.
Suggested cost $25.00 or whatever you can.
Donations to support this programming and making it accessible are welcome. Please send donations to the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network and indicate that the donation is for the August DIS Pre-Conference Forum.
Please direct questions about this forum to Lydia Brown at [log in to unmask] or +1 202-618-0187.