National Leadership Program, Summer 2021
Jill Feder
Jill Feder (she/her) was a Nonprofit Management Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Summer 2021. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.
Feder enrolled in RespectAbility’s Fellowship program so that she could be part of the solution in ending discrimination and biases against people with disabilities. She is excited to help RespectAbility earn the grants and donations it needs to maintain its life-enhancing services.
RespectAbility’s name itself aptly summarizes Feder’s philosophy about disability. She unequivocally believes that people of all abilities deserve respect. By the same token, she firmly feels that disabled people should not have to meet non-disabled people’s standards of “respectability” to earn that respect.
Nevertheless, she understands that disabled people live in a world in which employment, relationships, and other aspects of life are built around the sensibilities of non-disabled people. Thus, she is determined to help them survive a system made exclusively by and for non-disabled people.
Feder graduated from Wheaton College, MA magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Women and Gender Studies in May 2020. During her tenure at Wheaton, she was a member of the school’s Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility Leadership Senate, the Student Government Association Accessibility Board, as well as the college’s disability club. In her future career, she hopes to focus on educating non-autistic people about autism so that there is no longer only one way to be “normal.”
Congratulations to Jill Feder, on her accomplishments and positive philosophy, and also on her goals as an advocate and as an educator!!
Congratulations to Jill. I taught her piano for many years… She also sang.
I always knew that Jill would be great. She is so smart.
Love you Jill\