>> MEGAN LANG: Welcome to our Global Alliance for Disaster Resource Acceleration town hall. My name is Megan Lang, and we would first like to announce that we are recording this webinar. It is also currently being live streamed on WID’s Facebook page, which is Facebook.com/World InstituteonDisability and we have put the link in the Zoom chat. For starters, everyone has been muted. You can activate captions on your toolbar located at the bottom of the Zoom window, or use the URL we just put in the chat box. And I see that has been put there. Lastly, we do hope you will share and tweet about this WID town hall listening session and the very important issues you’ll raise today. We would love it if you use #DisabilityDisasterAlliance on the various social media platforms. I think that’s all the housekeeping, so let’s get started. I will turn it over to Priya penner, who will kick us off.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much Megan, hello, welcome everyone, my name is Priya Penner I’m with the partnership for disaster inclusive strategies as well as with GADRA my pronouns are she, her, and I am a Brown woman with curly black hair. Today I’m wearing a pink shirt and a red cardigan, in addition to my black over the ear headphones. So welcome once again to the Black Disabled Global Disaster Experiences action strategies webinar. We’re so excited that you’re here today to continue this conversation with us. This is a continuation of a previous conversation and previous panel that we held in February that I do hope that you all were able to attend. During that event, we discussed the experiences of Black disabled individuals all across the globe from different perspectives our five panelists, Anita Cameron, Dikko Yusuf, Vivienne Isebor, Kaman Kelly Wasup, as well as Leroy Moore, these panelists had a great discussion on what they believe to be the roots of black disabled folks are experiencing around the globe when experiencing disasters. They touched upon lack of resources, specifically financial resources, the lack of education, specifically for people with disabilities and Black individuals with disabilities. We also discussed how integrated and systemic the ableism and discrimination and racism were. So we had a really in-depth conversation in February on the roots of the issues that Black disabled individuals experience when facing disasters, I do hope that you go back to the GADRA Facebook page or Twitter page to review that post production, as it is archived for folks to review so you can have an idea of what that first conversation really looked like. Today the conversation is going to be centered on “how do we move forward?” and “how do we take what we learned from the first session and continuing that conversation so that we can address these issues?” As I previously mentioned, we have five amazing panelists, panelists with us today, that’s Anita Cameron from Not Dead Yet who is based in the United States, her pronouns are she, her, hers. Dikko Yusuf, who is with the Special Needs Initiative for Growth based in Nigeria. Their pronouns are he, him, his. We have Leroy Moore from Krip‑Hop Nation based in the United States, pronouns, him, his, Vivienne is with us from ADHD Babes based in the United Kingdom, pronouns are she, her, hers, and finally but certainly not least we have Kaman Kelly Wasup from Papua New Guinea, Assembly of Disabled Persons and PNG Blind Union, Papua New Guinea, Kaman prefers to have their pronouns as their name.
So we are going to run ‑‑ excuse me. We are going to go ahead and get started. We have the first question, which is, I’m going to start off with Anita, which is, how do we address the roots of these issues? Anita, we had this amazing conversation last time and you really discussed in depth the resources or lack thereof for disabled Black individuals in the United States and all across the globe. How would you suggest that we really address the root of the issue?
>> ANITA CAMERON: Thank you. Hello, everyone, my name is Anita Cameron. Quick Description: Black woman, long dreadlocks, sky blue shirt with a globe and various people with disabilities on it and the shirt says Disability Pride.
Well, certainly the issues of ableism and disability discrimination, the lack of access to resources, the lack of funding, for me, you know, also the lack of effective, or lack of a better word, use of someone’s talents, the problem is a lot of times as Black disabled folks, we’re not at the table, so to speak, or on the ground floor, and when we are, we are either underutilized or overutilized or tokenized, so we really have to ‑‑ and it stems from this kind of inequality and inequity. So for me, those are the roots of the problems. They’re not all, but it’s certainly the ones that I see a lot in my experience.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Wonderful. Can I ask you to elaborate on the resources and how the resources could really, you know, address the roots of the inequity in these experiences with disasters?
>> ANITA CAMERON: Well, I think, you know, so often between being disabled and being Black, we’re seen as lesser, and so the talents that we may bring, you know, into the picture aren’t utilized because people are so busy dealing with their emotions of I don’t really want them around or do we really need to have them, or do we really need to listen to them, you know, because so many individuals, agencies, entities, you know, don’t really want to hear from us, if you will, or think that it’s okay not to hear from us, that they’ll make the decisions for us, and that clearly does not work. So what ends up happening is I’ve been in situations where, okay, so we’re allowed to participate, but the environment is so toxic that it drives us away. We don’t want to ‑‑ you know, we don’t to want deal with that. You know, or people are so in their heads, you know, with this attitude of, you know, what value that they have that they just kind of dismiss, you know, what we have to say, don’t really listen, talk over us, you know, and all of that. So that’s what I mean as far as people resources, human resources. That’s a failure to effectively utilize people’s talents and gifts when you’re so busy in your own ableist, you know, or racist views and in your minds questioning what we have to bring, then it causes you not to want to effectively utilize that. So, you know, people have to sit with themselves, breathe, and know that if you’re talking about disabled and disabled Black people, the experts on this are disabled and disabled Black people, so deal. And that’s the problem with disaster, in disasters, disabled people and Black folks, we die needlessly. You know, we die when there’s no reasons we should be dying because of ableism, because of racism, because often we are poor and we don’t have access to, you know, the things that wealthier communities have. So, you know, folks need to sit with us, listen with us, you know, listen to us and work with us, take our suggestions because we’re the ones that know. Thanks.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Anita, that is so important to hear. Dikko, I’m really curious to hear your perspective on this question, and again that, question is, how do we address the roots of these issues that we’ve previously discussed? I’m really curious to hear your response from your corner of the world.
>> DIKKO YUSUF: I’m Dikko Yusuf, Black male wearing a pair of glasses, got black hair, short hair, cut low. Yeah, it’s good that you say from my part of the world because I do consider that some of the problems that we have in Nigeria can be a little bit, well, not in the same way relatable to the ones that you might have in the U.S. or in the UK or even in Papua New Guinea, where Kaman is from and with us today, it’s very important to pick up from the last question asked and the last conversation we had which was about the disaster cycle. So this is a cycle, I mean, that’s something that’s very key to remember, if the cycle is not broken, you know, if that continuous recurrence of this kind of situation that we find ourselves in is not broken, it’s not stopped at some point, it’s going on keep happening, right? So the way I see it, we cannot keep, we cannot always keep taking reactive measures every time there’s a disaster. We have to make sure that disaster response does not start when disaster strikes because this is almost the thing that happened with the COVID‑19 pandemic, and I hear this a lot. Whenever I’m in a conversation where people are discussing the pandemic, they say, well, it’s an eye opener, right? They keep saying it’s an eye opener. But before the pandemic, remember, we had several other disasters. Why were they not eye openers? So I think for me at least, the best way to address the roots of the problem now, the roots of the problem, very important is to make sure that we learn from current events and we’re in the middle of one right now, we’re at the height of this problem right now. So what I think is very important is to learn from the problems that we have seen during this pandemic and even during previous disasters and to make sure that they’re integrated into the next disaster planning preparation, you know, for subsequent disasters that probably, you know, will come and I think most global people who know stuff and predict stuff would say, yeah, sure, you know, one will always be around the corner, so we’ll be better prepared.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you, Dikko, I really resonate with that. I know others both on the panel and in attendance really do as well. Thank you for sharing that. Vivienne, I want to turn to you because I know last session, we talked about, specifically you talked about education specifically for Black disabled individuals and I think that really connects nicely with Dikko’s point, and I want to hear from you in your little neck of the woods over there in the United Kingdom what your response is to this question.
>> VIVIENNE ISEBOR: Thank you. Hi, I’ve Vivienne Isebor, I’m wearing a blue head scarf and T shirt with a black necklace. I agree with what’s been said already kind of being preemptive and not being kind of reactive to things that happen because if you’re already on shaky ground and then something shakes you, you’re more likely to fall even harder, so I think having that Foundation to start with is really important. So I guess here in the UK, we have really clear statistics that show that our community have poor outcomes across the board, so we look at the education where before the age I think it was five, Black children, especially Black girls do really well and then beyond that, you start to see that there’s a dip in how well we do, and we think that that’s linked with how teachers treat us and how we’re viewed within society. You start to realize your race and that starts to impact you, and then you have what we call PRU, which is a pupil referral unit for students who might be permanently excluded. And there’s a really high correlation between going to those PRUs and then ending up within the prison system. So a lot of young Black boys are kind of excluded or they’re seen as disruptive and it it kick starts a reallt negative root for where they go in the future, when they’re disruptive. We look at employment and we have the same difficulties where a lot of people who are Black might express might experience discrimination in the workplace or there’s higher statistics with us being unemployed and then you look at mental health statistics and there’s poorer outcomes, in regards to psychosis , in regards to getting support and talking therapy and even within the general healthcare there’s a lot of difficult statistics that show that people from the Black community especially Black women, aren’t listened to and believed when they’re in pain. So there’s a lot of different aspects to how difficult it is to be Black in Britain, and then when, you know, add that all on top of a pandemic, that just for a general person is going to be difficult it just makes recovering from that and even just sustaining that really difficult. So I think to address the root of the problem, even though it’s such a wide spectrum, I think it is kind of looking at those wider difficulties, how can we kind of address all these different obstacles that are put in front of Black folk as they’re going through life and how can we kind of safeguard them against those things and I think community services do that really well. I know that for me, managing to get through school was because we had things at the Duke of Ellington program where we were taken camping and we were, you know, taught about Black history and we had loads of things that intersected with all the difficulties that we were experiencing, and again, it’s difficult because funding for these things have been cut over the last five to ten years.
So I think yes, it’s about addressing those kind of all those multiple things are getting in the way of us having a good quality of life, pouring money and resources back into the communities that are providing these safe spaces for people to recover from what we’re having to experience just for being Black. So yeah.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you, Vivienne. Yeah, that’s a very important perspective. We all know that education, specifically for disabled Black folks, is simply lacking, and that absolutely does contribute, as you said, to the perpetuating nature of the inequality within the disaster cycle. So thank you, really, so much for that. Kaman, I’m going to turn to you because I’m really curious to see your perspective and hear your perspective on how, you know, we address the roots of these issues, you know, in your corner in Papua New Guinea.
>> KAMAN KELLY WASUP: Yeah, I’m Kaman, yeah, I’m wearing a black sunglasses. I just want to extend on the conversation which the other panelists alluded to. We’ve been discussing about some of the issues facing Black disabled people. In Papua New Guinea, it’s a Black country so pretty much sometimes it’s similar, sometimes it’s not similar, so some of the things that we’ve been seeing the lack of accessibility that support us, it’s not related but sometimes international donors or partners they know that persons with disabilities organizations are on the ground to carry out things, but they use the other international organization to come down to come down to the ground programs and that’s one of the challenges we face. Going on to the question we are discussing right now, I see this building on from the other panelists, I see the importance of identifying where are we in terms of our participation and engagement in driving closer to be on the table or to discuss or to put some of the resources forward for them to participate in discussing the decision‑making process, so where are we and how do we get there? So it’s good to identify, you know, it’s good to identify some of the barriers that are creating or limiting our opportunity, our chances to be on the table, to participate. So once you identify the barriers, it might be systemic barriers or it might be some institutional barriers causing problems for us as Black people to be at the table to discuss, once we identify barriers, it can give us an opportunity to put the steps together, mechanisms to strive to be included.
So my point here is just building on the panelists’ discussion forward is to identify the barriers and how we can get there, how we can remove the barriers that are causing us to participate effectively despite, you know, if we are Black or despite our region or our colors and disability as well. That’s how I see it, thank you.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you, Kaman, thank you so much for your perspective. It’s so important to recognize the barriers and realize that we can’t move forward and address the roots without initial identifying the roots and barriers. Leroy, I’ll turn to you, and I know in the session in February we had discussed together and you had mentioned specifically the lack of financial resources and lack of financial support for Black disabled leadership and turn to you with this next question, which is how can other leaders best center Black disabled leadership in local, national, and global emergency management, planning, response and recovery?
>> LEROY MOORE: Thank you for having me here. I’m a Black man with salt and pepper hair, sitting in my room. I’m going to be honest. I’m going to be honest. You talk about how you get people involved, well, it doesn’t make sense to get people involved when our government doesn’t implement our laws. So when we had Joe Biden ran for President and disability campaign, you know, fully fund the IDEA plan. That law has been in since 1975, so he just woke up one day and said “oh we fully fund this.” The thing is we have laws on the books, they’re not fully implemented or fully funded. Same thing in the UK, the UK does studies after studies after studies on Black disabled people. It’s called implementation. So we can have support and fund our group and do activism all day and twice on Sundays, but if the government does not implement our laws, then we’re left out so we need to really put pressure, and this goes back to the UK too, put pressure on these governments to implement our laws, because if we don’t have that, then we don’t have anything but a piece of paper.
So we can advocate until next Christmas but we need our government to really implement and fully fund our laws. But I can keep on saying that IDEA be fully funded. And that goes to education. When you can’t get an education, then you can’t get a job, and you can’t get a house, so it’s a trickle‑down effect.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely.
>> LEROY MOORE: So let’s pressure the government, and if we have to sue the government, let’s sue it.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much, Leroy, absolutely. I think the panelists agree, we have heard from several individuals already, Vivienne and Dikko, about the importance of education and ensuring that Black disabled folks from the beginning are educated so that we can have ‑‑ so that Black disabled folks can have the support to be able to, you know, go through the disaster cycle. If you don’t have those initial tools, you’re already at a disadvantage, absolutely. What I’m really, you know, I really want to hear more about and I think I’m going to turn to Anita on this because you mentioned this as well during the last session, is, you know, when centering Black disabled leadership in local, national and global emergency planning response and recovery, the leaders are there. Leroy says, you know, as Leroy said, leaders are there and we need to listen to them, but for folks who are wondering on, you know, what else, yes, listen to Black disabled leadership, but what does that look like to you, Anita?
>> ANITA CAMERON: Listening to us, well, my feelings on, you know, if you’re truly listening to us, the way it’s going to show or manifest itself is that you really listen to what we’re saying and then implement the things that we’re saying, and make it so that things are accessible, you know, for us, like I said. I mean, we’re on these committees and commissions and it is absolutely true to you have to ‑‑ you can’t just wait until a disaster to start doing things, you know. You have to plan before the disaster so that you can do things during and after the disaster, you know, and recovery phase and all of that. But truly hear us, implement the things that we are saying, value us, you know, don’t tokenize us, don’t put all the work on us, you know.
But then on the other hand, don’t give us little busy, busy work to do. Don’t give us busy‑busy work to do. You know, give us real, effective things to do so that we could really, you know, listen to us, do things in a culturally competent fashion. That’s another thing that has to happen. Look at the way, you know, I think that people, that it will be clear that people are listening to us. When you implement the things we listen to us, take notes, implement the things awe say and do things in a culturally competent fashion. So I mean, to me, the biggest thing on show that you heard us is to put what we say in action, in motion.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Wonderful. That’s very similar to what I’m hearing from Leroy, and it really sounds to me that the best way to center Black disabled leadership is to recognize Black disabled leadership. Dikko, would you say that’s true?
>> DIKKO YUSUF: Yeah, I think it is true, it very much is true. And building up on what Anita and Leroy have said also, I think part of the implementation is, because I’ve seen this firsthand here in Nigeria where I am, my local government decided that it’s going give away scholarships to disabled students, but the problem is they were not able to identify the target audience. So they put out the scholarship, it’s out there, and they said that only two people applied, the slots are there, but people are not applying. So I think one of the things that you do if you want to send to Black disabled people in local, more general, and national politics or leadership is that you need to have them individually within the holds of power, so where power resides, as these decisions are made, for example, the scholarship decision, there’s somebody there with a disability that can say or suggest the best channel to make the people with disabilities aware of, you know, the targeted audience and do it in conjunction with organizations and associations for persons with disabilities because this also happened in Nigeria during the COVID‑19 pandemic where relief materials were being distributed but because associations and organizations for persons living with disabilities were not really consulted, so many people with disabilities were not able to go to the places where these things were being distributed because it was so crowded and people were pushing other people and it’s not really accessible to someone with a wheelchair or even in the implementation of stay at home orders, some people were Deaf and they were unable to hear when they were being shouted at stay at home or blah blah blah, so in terms of the implementation, it is important to implement them, but also it is important to have disabled people where the decisions are made individually within high positions where the decisions are made, sort of like advisors telling the people in power how to implement these things, because if you leave it to the government and say okay, we have written papers and so on, go and read the papers and it will help you, you know, in taking your decision, from my experience, what I’ve found is that it often doesn’t work that well. When you have somebody and like I liked what Leroy said, pressure, pressure is important so also along with that keep the pressure, and I think when you have somebody there and people the and organizations and the people who campaign for these things are also backing him, I think them, whoever they are, I think it’s going to be very helpful in terms of implementing it.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much, Dikko. I wanted to live Leroy an opportunity to respond to that, and then I’m going to turn to Kaman for our last question. Or not our last question, one of our last questions.
Leroy?
>> LEROY MOORE: Yeah. I want to give a really good example, on the ground example, because we can talk about government all day but really what’s on the ground is what we’re really doing. So disability justice social club and really is kicking butt on the ground, you know, during the PG & E outage. They came out with a fund to help other disabled people, and be this on the ground. That’s number one. Number two is POOR Magazine, and POOR Magazine has this project called Homefulness and they are building homes for low‑income, no‑income people, and they do this all with no funding. Some am there’s answers on the ground, and we need to pick up and bring to the state level and the federal level because essentially during these emergencies that are happening, we need alternative platforms, especially now if we want to come out of COVID and come to a new place in society, then we need some new radical ideas. Thanks.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you, Leroy. What I really heard from that is the answers are there. We have the answers. The Black disabled community has the answers. So one of the best ways to center Black disabled leadership is recognize Black disabled leadership, listen to Black disabled leadership, and follow Black disabled leadership. That’s really what I’m gathering from the five of you. So thank you guys so much. Kaman, I’m going to turn to you for our next question, and that’s, how do we build a culture where truly inclusive and equitable disaster preparedness, response and recovery is the norm?
>> KAMAN KELLY WASUP: Yes, how do we build a culture. It’s only when we effectively participate in the process, you know, in the designing, when we’re talking about disaster, when we are talking about leaders, our Black disabled people are not missing out on service delivery in terms of responding to whatever the disaster is, rioting or whatever. To build a strong culture, it’s only when we are participating properly in the decision-making process. So how do we participate, to recognize us, to recognize Black people in the process and also to participate in whatever, you know, discussions or whatever strategies they are putting forth, whether it be the government or development partners. So I think, I strongly think that if only we are participating effectively, if we are participating effectively from the designing of the projects, right from the designing of a disaster and preparedness response and planning of things, then we’ll know and we’ll ensure that we can tick the box. If we’re not participating all across the cycle, as some of our panelists have alluded to, we’ll be missing out. So the important thing is to see us participating in the process.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely. That is so important. And, you know, it should be noted again, and what I’m hearing from you guys really is that participation is there. It’s really important to recognize that participation ‑‑ excuse me, that participation and encourage other disabled Black folks to participate. So thank you so much, Kaman. Vivienne, we haven’t heard from you in a while. I want to turn to you. What are your thoughts on how we build a culture where truly inclusive and equitable disaster preparedness, response and recovery is the norm?Ly.
>> VIVIENNE ISEBOR: Thank you for including us in the conversation and the wider context what I was saying before in terms all the wider determinants that might impact our lives as Black folk but also disabled, yeah, considering all these wider things that might impact us and having that in mind when we’re trying to understand and support people, so I think looking at the Hierarchy of Needs. So if somebody having a difficult time finding housing, it’s not really going to do them justice to offer them a study skills coach for work because the home they’re going to is not stable. So I think it’s considering people, yeah as a huge ‑‑ as an entire person and sometimes I think with support services, they can just focus on one element. Person and they don’t consider the whole. So I think changing that narrative where we see the bigger picture and work across services so, you know, if it’s a service that supports women who might be experiencing domestic violence, is there also a service that supports young people, so those children in the family can also get support. So having ways to work together so there’s a community of support around people. I also think there needs to be some kind of, I guess, in terms of the idea of recovery, we need to subscribe to the disability model, so not placing the problem on us, is society accommodating us, is it accommodating our difference and if not, that’s how we move to a recovery norm, actually this person isn’t the problem, we’re just not providing them enough space, we’re not giving them the right tools and resources to improve their quality of life and I think if we change that narrative it takes away a lot of shame and takes away the fight to get support because that becomes a standard that this person needs a leg up, they need a helping hand, and that becomes normal, it doesn’t become their problem. Yeah, and I think that just needs to be held in mind a lot more and that can be kind of rolled out across different services. So yeah, I think that’s the main thing for me.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Wonderful. Yeah. Absolutely. We don’t live if a bubble. You know, humans don’t live in a bubble, and we don’t live with one specific identity. We know that can Crenshaw has coined this term intersectionality, and really keeping that in focus, keeping that idea in focus so that, you know, people are supported in every way they need and not just one specific way. Is that about right?
>> VIVIENNE ISEBOR: Exactly. And not placing the problem of them because the problem is not them, the problem is that there’s not enough resources to support their difference.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely.
>> VIVIENNE ISEBOR: And diversity is within the scope of humanity, we exist as a ‑‑
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely.
>> VIVIENNE ISEBOR: So it’s not a problem, it’s a difference, and that needs to be heavily included in our systems and how we set up structures.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely. 100 percent. That shift is so important.
Dikko, I want to turn to you because I know that you have some thoughts on this specifically on what Vivienne said. So did you want to jump in here? On what Vivienne said.
>> DIKKO YUSUF: Yeah. I almost don’t want to jump in here because Vivienne has so beautifully. Like changing the narrative and making sure that it’s not about like I’m the one with a disability, so I’m the problem obviously and I’m the burden. It’s all about having this kind of more balanced approach to what we want to become appears a society, recognize the difference ‑‑ as a society, recognize the differences that exist, and Vivienne talked about this beautifully. So I do not want to hammer on this too much, but I do think it’s a very important point and it’s worth emphasizing as much as we can because the key point that I also to want stress is, if we start looking at society as the one or society as the thing that is not designed well to fit our own different kinds of abilities, then we start recognizing that okay in a school we should have more accessible learning for students, in a place of work we should have more accessible work for a person who works there and also in general daily living we start recognizing those little bits of improvements that we have to make in the design of our world and then when there’s a disaster we don’t have to start talking about okay, how do we quickly evacuate, okay, now we’ve evacuated everyone put somebody’s wheelchair is still up 20 stories, so just leave the wheelchair. When next are they going to have a wheelchair? We don’t know but that he is not our problem. So if we ‑‑ but that’s not our problem.
So if we start looking at a society to say okay is it really designed to accommodate the differences that we have, think we would have a more better, you know, appropriate and more efficient response, if you like, to disasters as a whole. I’m very excited to be part of this, because yeah, you learn from things like this, and I think partly probably the bigger, larger point of having these kinds of conversations.
>> PRIYA PENNER: I want to specifically note, Dikko, that your comments are definitely not only welcome but highly respected and I’m so glad you did add your comments because what I’m hearing from you, that Vivienne alluded to, is, you know, when we are really meaning to actively meaning to support Black disabled folks and other multiple marginal individuals we are better be supporting the community as a whole, everyone’s needs will be met.
>> DIKKO YUSUF: That’s another aspect, disability is making things not just better for us but the larger society, you’re absolutely right.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much, Dikko, I really appreciate your thoughts. We have about two minutes before we ‑‑ before we jump to the Q & A portion. I want to get to the last question, we’ve discussed this during this webinar as well as a webinar in February, we’ve discussed how racism and ableism really impacts Black disabled people’s experiences during disasters and how it perpetuates the inequalities within these systems, so we, meaning GADRA, we are establishing a Working Group that specifically focuses on ensuring that our work is led by and accountable to Black, Brown, Indigenous and other disabled People of Color globally. And as future members of this Working Group, which we’re all very excited to have you on, what is one thing you want to focus on as we build equitable disaster responses? I’m going to turn to Anita and then to Leroy.
>> ANITA CAMERON: Thanks, but I quickly want to go back on something, and it might even be applicable to this. I’m a community response team member, a CRT, I’m a CRT, I teach CRT, I design CRT programs. When you look at training materials and you don’t see people or situations that represent you, that makes you feel like you’re forgotten. So in all of my CRT training, I never saw disabled people in the training materials, pictures of us, I certainly never saw Black people, and I certainly never saw disabled people. So, you know, I’m thinking that one of the things that we could be doing, you know, here at GADRA as we’re coming up with things and whatnot and designing and certainly these webinars are a great response, a great start, but if we are, for example, if we are designing training materials and things of that nature to reach out to different communities and whatnot, please don’t fill it all up with white able‑bodied folks. You know, use, you know, incorporate us into that. First, incorporate us into that training. I would say reach out, you know, GADRA, I think you can reach out to more Black and disabled communities, you know, not only around the world, but in like rural, poor areas because all of us kind of doing this, we have a measure, I would like to see us like really reach out to like really, really impoverished communities and getting them am to be on that ground floor and be at the table in that. And when we’re dealing with people with disabilities, don’t just, you know, include those of us with the privilege to be able to speak or talk or whatnot. I want to see people with intellectual disabilities in on this. I want to see people who are nonspeaking or nonverbal in on this. I want to see those people that we usually leave out in the disability community in on this. So I think that, you know, us, GADRA, I think we really kind of need to be kind of far‑reaching in our efforts, and, you know, I think we need to work on some funding because this is going take some money.
>> PRIYA PENNER: 100 percent.
>> ANITA CAMERON: There are poor groups and poor folks out there who manage to do this without funding, but I think that it can happen, but on the other hand, don’t leave that all to us.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely. Anita.
>> ANITA CAMERON: Because a lot of us don’t have the access to money, funding, grants or anything like that, you know, to help us out.
>> PRIYA PENNER: 1,000 percent.
>> ANITA CAMERON: So see us, have us, use us, use us in trainings and education and fund us.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much, Anita, that beautiful summarizes this event, honestly. It’s actually really interesting, you answered and Andrea’s question in the chat ‑‑ Andrew’s question which was how do we collaborate recovery and CRT teams around the country and I think you spoke to that Anita and it starts with inclusive trainings and inclusive representation. So thank you Anita.
That I know we do have a couple of questions in the Q & A, I want to turn very quick toll Leroy. Leroy, you have about two minutes. I know you had a previous comment and then to answer the question as well.
>> LEROY MOORE: Yeah, I’ll make it quick. I’ll talk about what Krip‑Hop is doing. What Krip‑Hop is doing. Now we’re going to write a book together about African people with disabilities in our world. We have to realize that Black disabled people have movements before this crisis. So you them in UK, in Toronto and South Africa, and all of them were crushed because of a lack of funding and white voices but that I think we need to tell these stories, to tell these stories about these movements that started out that really nobody is writing about, you know, so that’s one thing, telling the stories and getting the stories out there.
>> PRIYA PENNER: That’s so important. Absolutely. When we don’t know the stories that are out there and the experiences out there, it’s really hard to address those inequal experiences. Thank you, Leroy.
In the next five minutes I want to jump to our Q & A. I’m going on start with Kaman. We have a question, what should the global effort for inclusive and ‑‑ I am so sorry ‑‑ clearly I need to put my reading glasses on.
Let me start over.
What should be the global effort for inclusivity and diversity?
>> KAMAN KELLY WASUP: Inclusivity and diversity globally. Yeah. It’s a progressive realization, not just seeing us especially as disability but seeing us as important person in the society that can contribute towards the development of the society in the country as a whole, so recognizing the importance of everyone to play in the society, then we can participate in inclusivity taking into consideration. Some of the times too, some of the times too, it’s good to embrace, you know, like for me I come from Papua New Guinea, and our cultural practices, how we carry the cultural practices from our traditional, you know, ancestors forward and we continue, it’s very, very strong. So it’s good to realize that and embrace it and gets it forward and bring to the table on discuss how do we embrace and realize that a Black person with disability but embracing how you live and how you do things, it’s part of the inclusivity when you embrace, you know, everyone equally despite how they grew up and things like this. So it’s good to embrace and that you include that.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Absolutely. Perhaps and I would love to hear your thoughts too, Kaman, but perhaps it’s even ‑‑ I would dare say take it a step further and say, you know, people with disabilities are important, A, period, right, as people we’re important, but we’re important, our perspectives are important to disaster management and recovery because we are disabled people, right? Because we have that perspective. We are important because of our disability and our perspective. So I’m sure you would agree with that as well, Kaman.
>> KAMAN KELLY WASUP: Yes, definitely, definitely. An important thing to realize is, you know, everyone, every Black person with disability especially on here, so you cannot be substituted or represented by anyone else. You have to bring a perspective to the table on inclusivity and disability.
>> PRIYA PENNER: Thank you so much, Kaman. That is such an important perspective. Thank you. So we do have a couple more questions focused on individuals. I’m happy to share these questions with the panelists themselves. Because we are at the top of the hour and I am going on wrap us up, I want to first and foremost say thank you to our five panelists. This was such an amazing discussion, and I really truly hope to see you on our GADRA Working Group so that we can continue this very necessary and important work that we have now and we’re doing now. Secondly, I want to thank our access team, that interpret this team for ASL as well as our CART captioner, Lori, who on CART today. So thank you all for your presence and your help today. This event would not be nearly as successful without you all. And lastly, I want to thank the attendees who are here today with us. This conversation really is so vital, and we’re so glad that you’re here with us to have it.
Please stay tuned for the post‑production of this video. It should be out within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can view this webinar as well as previous webinars on our GADRA Facebook page, as well as review other material on our GADRA Twitter page. Thank you guys so much, and have a lovely day.
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