Indiana Disability Justice Task Force History
This task force was envisioned by Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams, M.A. of the El Dorado Miwoks, early in 2018. Cierra has been focused on disability justice for many years through funding from the Rape Prevention Education (RPE) Grant and quickly invited Skye Ashton Kantola, another RPE grantee with a history in marginalized community organizing and violence prevention education, to co-create the Task Force (learn more about Cierra and Skye below). As both of us are survivors of poly-violence and disabled self-advocates, we have desired from the inception of the Task Force that the working group be centered on the needs, strengths, and desires of people with disabilities and survivors.
During 2018, the Task Force did our ground work, inviting as many self-advocates, ally advocates, service providers, and caregivers as possible. Our foundational ground consists of 44 members with about 15 very active leaders, with about a third of us having disabilities and several of us having developmental and/or cognitive disabilities. We designed our meeting structures to be more accessible than most meetings many of us have been a part of, including ensuring multiple ways to attend meetings and make decisions, allowing for a slower meeting flow and inviting questions, and developing our goals and subcommittees. Given the momentum we build in 2018, both Cierra and Skye submitted additional funding requests to our grantors for the 2019-2020 funding year to expand the efforts of the Task Force and we were both awarded these funds!
Founding Members
About Cierra (She/Her pronouns)
Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams, M.A. of the Miwok of the El Dorado Rancheria joined the movement to end sexual and domestic violence in 1998 as a survivor and an activist. After 17 years as a victim’s advocate who also coordinated prevention efforts for shelters in Oregon and Indiana, Cierra was invited to join the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) prevention team in 2015 in order to focus more intentionally on priority or underserved populations. Ms. Thomas-Williams now works collaboratively with the ICADV prevention team to develop, implement, evaluate and report on strategies supporting Indiana’s sexual violence prevention plan and intimate partner violence prevention plan as they relate to underserved and marginalized populations, including teens and people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
About Skye (she and they)
Skye Ashton Kantola is the Interim Assistant Director at the Office of Multicultural Programs in the College of Agriculture at Purdue University, a queer and trans community organizer, and an engaged artist. Skye’s passion for violence prevention is rooted in their experiences an autistic, disabled trans person, a survivor, and borne in part from their experience with crisis intervention and community organizing work in Texas. After moving to Indiana in 2012, they became the lead facilitator and Director of Trans Lafayette, a local trans support and anti-oppression organization based out of Lafayette, IN until 2016. From 2013-2020, Skye was the Program Coordinator at the Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Assault (MESA). Since 2015, Skye has also served as the Communication Director of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., a U.S.-based internationally reaching organization committed to utilizing critical pedagogy and non-traditional theatre for social change, violence prevention, and anti-oppression work. Skye now facilitates interactive and experiential workshops on marginalized community wellness for OMP, writes and performs spoken word poetry, and creates visual art focused on trauma, survivorship, and resiliency through their small art adventure, Faerie Bear Art.
Contact Us: INdisabilityjustice@gmail.com