Rockville, Md., Sept. 13 – Jose Plaza, current manager of The California Endowment and a former associate board member of the Washington, D.C., Latin American Youth Center, spoke with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff about his passion for the inclusion of people with disabilities in his work.

The California Endowment supports many of the core values that RespectAbility advocates for: bringing awareness to conducive, diverse populations such as people with disabilities and supporting the efforts in giving them equal opportunities to thrive. With the focus on underserved communities, Jose Plaza and The California Endowment have worked on finding the effective tools necessary for change.

“We need to ensure that we are all there for each other,” Plaza said. “We need to rise up as one.” With Plaza’s credence to find intersectionality across all communities, he uses his Hispanic background and former experiences to “celebrate diversity” across all borders. [continue reading…]

Learning from The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Patrick McCarthy

Patrick McCarthy with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Sept. 13 – Do you remember playing with a kaleidoscope when you were a child? Or even recently? How about the excitement as the image changes and you gain a new perspective?

Patrick McCarthy speaking to RespectAbility Fellows

Patrick McCarthy, the CEO and President of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, brought RespectAbility Fellows and staff back to their childhoods. McCarthy reminded Fellows that the image changes as you turn it.

“It is all about how you use it and how you see it,” he said.

The ‘Kaleidoscope Perspective’ has played a significant role in how McCarthy guides The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The Baltimore-based foundation is one of the largest in the United States, giving away more than $99 million dollars in 2015. As the website states, the foundation focuses on “strengthening families, building stronger communities, and ensuring access to opportunity, because children need all three to succeed.”

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Learning from Nancy Bocskor

Nancy Bocskor with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Sept. 12 – When I applied to be a Development Fellow for RespectAbility, I was under the impression that development was a synonym (and a more sophisticated name) for fundraising. But throughout the Fellowship, I have enjoyed learning about the nuances of development, specifically the intensely personal form that it often takes and the unique role of storytelling.

While speaking to the summer cohort of RespectAbility Fellows, Nancy Bocskor punctuated each bit of development advice with a story, weaved from personal experience and an appreciation for the connection that storytelling can create.

Bocskor, tagged a “Democracy Coach” by a major German newspaper, teaches citizens in the United States and internationally how to communicate with passion to affect change in their communities. She has raised money for more than 100 Members of Congress and candidates, trained activists and leaders in all 50 states and 26 countries and helped non-profits craft a story that resonates with donors and volunteers. Her areas of expertise include presentation skills, speech coaching, fundraising, grassroots advocacy and women’s leadership training.

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Born This Way Takes Home Two More Emmy’s for Cinematography and First-Ever Emmy for Casting

Born This Way’s John Tucker and Rachel Osterbach back stage after they presented awards in three categories at the Emmy’s Creative Arts Awards.

Los Angeles, Calif., Sept. 11 – A&E Network’s critically acclaimed and award-winning original docuseries Born This Way’s honors keep adding up – showing that disability is a winning theme. This series starring a cast with disabilities, which received six Emmy nominations this year, won two Emmy’s at Saturday night’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Casting for a Reality Program and Cinematography for a Reality Program – after bringing home the Emmy for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Series in 2016.

Produced by Bunim/Murray Productions, Born This Way, an unscripted reality show on A&E, follows a group of seven young adults with Down syndrome along with their family and friends in Southern California. Because its focus is on showing their everyday lives, including employment, efforts for independent housing, loves and more, Born this Way breaks down stigmas surrounding disability.

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A conversation with Professor Steven Eidelman on the sheltered workshops movement, the value of work and the importance of enforcing the rights for people with disabilities

Steven Eidelman with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Sept. 8 – “What do you do?” Professor Steven Eidelman identifies this as one of first questions many of us Americans ask or get asked when we meet a person for the first time. He links this question to the way we define work in our country and how it affects the way we view others, especially those with disabilities.

People who work contribute and find meaning in life; unfortunately, not all people work in America, he said. Eidelman’s impassioning spirit encouraged RespectAbility Fellows to step up as advocates as he talked about the journey of workforce integration for people with disabilities. It is a journey that he has witnessed and participated in throughout his life that has yet to achieve full integration.

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The unveiling of “Cambodia Town” official street sign in Long Beach, California

Long Beach, Calif., Sept. 20 – Today, there are about 320,000 Cambodian Americans in the United States. California has the highest population of Cambodian Americans with an estimate of 118,000 people. Long Beach, California has the largest and oldest Cambodian community in the nation with at least 20,000 people.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Cambodia and the United States created a program for Cambodian students to attend California colleges and universities. The students learned about agriculture, industrial arts and engineering. After students completed their degrees, they returned to Cambodia. When Cambodia ended diplomatic relations with the United States in the mid-1960s, the program ended as well. However, several students decided to remain in the United States permanently. When the first wave of Cambodian refugees came to the United States at Camp Pendleton, California, which was 70 miles south of Long Beach, the former students visited the refugees. The former students brought them meals and supplies; they ended up sponsoring refugees to earn their citizenship and to help them adjust to life in a foreign country. This student support system resulted in the formation of the Cambodian Association of America, which attracted subsequent refugees who came to Long Beach after the Cambodian genocide because of the Association’s ability to help the refugees adapt to life in the United States.

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JPMorgan’s Chase & Co., Corporate Responsibility Manager, Rodney E. Hood, talks about his efforts that are advancing successful disability inclusion.

Rodney Hood with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Sept. 6 – You may be familiar with the phrase, “nothing about us, without us,” a powerful message that symbolizes the disability rights movement and stance on disability inclusion. However, more than two decades have passed and disability oppression still is present today. It is relevant that acknowledging a problem and its solution does not compare to doing something about it, Rodney E. Hood shared with RespectAbility Fellows.

Rodney Hood and RespectAbility Fellow Ricky Rendon

“People with disabilities need to be present because it’s the right thing that needs to happen,” said Hood, who joined RespectAbility Fellows on the day before Independence Day.

Despite his impressive career as a banker and policy maker, Hood takes most pride in his work engaging in the disability space around financial inclusion. An opportunity he says began by saying “yes” to the question, “Would you have an interest in doing this?” has turned into a job he is deeply passionate about and invested in.

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Learning from Meyer Foundation Program Officer Julian A. Haynes

Julian A. Haynes with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Sept. 6 – How is it that income for Wisconsin’s wealthiest one percent grew by 120 percent between 1979 and 2013, while the income for the remaining 99 percent grew by just 4 percent? Why is it that 12.8 percent, twice the national average of 6.7 percent, of Wisconsin’s African-American men are incarcerated in state prison or local jails while only 1.24 percent of white men are imprisoned? More importantly, how can I help solve these problems of inequality?

Julian A. Haynes speaking to RespectAbility Fellows

The courage to ask these uncomfortable questions is what led Julian A. Haynes, a passionate advocate from Madison, Wisconsin, to pursue work focused on addressing the unfortunate reality of racial and economic disparities.

Haynes began his work in the nonprofit sector as a project coordinator with the United Way of Dane County in Madison, Wisconsin where he worked to ensure county residents had ready access to a variety of social services and programming. He later continued his career as a program associate on the education team at the Kresge Foundation, and then as an associate director of programs and policy at Achieving the Dream, a national reform network dedicated to community college student success and completion. He is currently a program officer at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation.

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Advice from Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Ollie Cantos

Ollie Cantos with RespectAbility Fellows and Staff

Rockville, Md., Aug. 22 – Ollie Cantos is a blind Filipino-American who currently serves in public service under President Donald J. Trump as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.

“People with disabilities: we all have things we want to do”

During a lunch with RespectAbility’s Summer Fellows, Cantos shared a compelling story about his journey toward embracing his disability as a part of his identity, admitting that he originally considered his visual impairment a “minor” obstacle that he tried to hide. In spite of his obstacles, he eventually became the highest-ranking person with a disability in the U.S. federal government and an avid advocate for the disability sector.

His work as a civil rights attorney, the General Counsel & Director of Programs for the American Association of People with Disabilities, as Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Associate Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House under President George W. Bush, and many other roles, has contributed immensely to empowering individuals with disabilities.

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