CDR to Launch The Disability Dialogue Blog in January 2015 – Meet Our Bloggers!

Center for Disability Rights is proud to announce that our new blog program, The Disability Dialogue, will debut in January 2015. We are excited to have two regular contributors, Emily Ladau and Leah Smith, who will be blogging twice a month on a variety of Disability Rights issues. We will also be accepting submissions for guest blogs from anyone who wants to contribute to The Disability Dialogue.  Leah, Emily, and CDR hope you’ll join the discussion by contributing to The Disability Dialogue. You can submit guest posts for consideration to CDR, and be a part of this awesome new project!

In the meantime, meet our new bloggers!

A message from Emily:

When I read the call for writers to contribute to the new Center for Disability Rights blog, I thought I might have been dreaming. Writing about disability issues and advocating is what I love to do, so I’m lucky to be part of The Disability Dialogue along with the fabulous Leah Smith.

My advocacy career actually began at the age of 10, when I appeared on several episodes of Sesame Street to educate children about living with my physical disability. In the years following my time hanging out with Big Bird and Elmo, activism became my passion and priority.

I’m lucky to have first learned about advocating effectively by watching my mother, who has the same disability as me – a genetic joint and muscle disorder called Larsen syndrome. She was my fiercest advocate, along with my father, until I took on more responsibility in advocating for myself. As it happens, my mom is the one who came up with the title for this new blogging project!

Anyway, I graduated summa cum laude from Adelphi University in May 2013 with a Bachelor’s degree in English, and exactly one week after graduation, I began the American Association of People with Disabilities in Washington, D.C., and through them, I had the opportunity to work for the Association of University Centers on Disabilities. Upon returning home from Washington, D.C., I started a blog called Words I Wheel By. I also began to work as a freelance writer, and have been published on places such as The New York Times website and the Huffington Post.

I plan to write about quite a range of topics for The Disability Dialogue, including (but not limited to): self-advocacy skills, stories, and strategies; living with a physical disability; disability in the media; social justice issues affecting disabled populations; self-care and self-acceptance; allyship; navigating school as a disabled student; navigating healthcare systems; having multiple disabled family members; and then intersection of disability with other minority groups/social movements. (Whew!)

My goal as a writer, and what I hope to accomplish through my pieces for The Disability Dialogue, is to make disability an engaging and relatable topic for everyone, regardless of whether they identify as disabled or not. After all, how can we expect the world to be accessible to disabilities if we don’t make disability issues accessible to the world?

A word from Leah:

I am so excited to be blogging for CDRNYS. While I have been involved with disability issues for a long time, blogging is a brand new venture for me. I can’t wait for all that it will entail.

I have been serving as the Director of Public Relations for Little People of America (LPA) for the past four years. In this role, I often advocate for how little people are represented and discussed in the media. Before my recent relocation to Philadelphia, I was living in Texas and working at a Center for Independent Living doing nursing home to community transition. Educationally, I have a Masters in Public Administration and Bachelors in Public Relations. I now live in Philadelphia with my partner and two dogs.

I believe I was born an advocate and that it is something that has been inside of me all along. Though it first started taking root at age 3, when in Sunday school they began teaching that God made all living things grow. My mom had just recently been explaining to me that I had dwarfism and wasn’t going to grow like my brother and sister. I’ve been told that on that Sunday morning, I called them all out for not recognizing that the full breadth of humanity belongs in this world. (Except, of course, it was in much simpler language than that.) I knew what they were saying was ableist and wanted them to know it. Some might argue that I haven’t been quiet since!

Needless to say, I get angry with some of the most common experiences that people with disabilities face.  I enjoy looking at how we talk about and discuss the experience within the disability community and how media portrays our experiences externally. There is still plenty of work to be done and I’m ready to get waist deep in it all.

Thus, I’m out to change the world and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m looking forward to using this blog as a venue for expressing these views and hope that I both make you mad and make you laugh. Either way, I hope you let us know by writing in our guest blog and telling us your perspective.