This I Believe

By A’niya Williams, high school senior

I believe in independence, self love and equality. All through elementary and middle school I got bullied and people would pick fights with me for whatever reason I didn’t understand because I was always so quiet. That made me very insecure and depressed. I never really talked to anyone about the issues I was having because I felt like no one could help. When I got to high school I got a new start, and started to see my value, and what I am capable of. This is why self love is so important because if you love and respect yourself, nobody can tell you different. Self love is also not letting another person’s needs come before yours, and not settling. I believe this is very important because if you don’t love yourself it is very hard to love someone else. 

When I was younger I was alway more on the dependent side. When I started to get a little older and started having relationships I would depend on them to make me happy. Then when I moved away my whole attitude and perspective changed. I got a job and started to do as much as I could for myself so my mom could have a little less stress. Also it felt good to not have to ask for something that I wanted. 

I believe independence is important because you can’t always rely on someone to do everything for you, or make you happy. There is a time in everyone’s life where they have to go out into the world and live their own life. It is a really good feeling because you know u did it on your own. 

Lastly equality. Equality is very important to me because when I grew up there wasn’t a lot of it especially in school. Growing up in school as a minority was very hard. I was one of few mixed/ black race at my schools. Teachers would treat me differently and I never really put the pieces together until later in my life. I believe equality in the USA is fake and it’s just here to make people think everything is equal. In reality nothing is equal, because no one is given the same thing when they are put on this earth. Equality is very important to me because it is a right that everyone should be given. 

This is an image of three heart shapes hanging from strings.

I Am Autistic

I am autistic I wonder philosophically I hear love I see equality I want to be normal I am caring I pretend to be normal I feel cast out I touch lives I worry about everything I cry when other cry I am goffy I understand autism Means different I say we are all equal I dream about the futur I try to feel powerful I hope for equality I am autistic

About the Author:

My name is Aidan Draper, I am diagnosed with ASD. I’m 15, I live in Muncie IN, and I go to Liberty Christian School in Anderson, IN. I’m a sophomore in high school. I am passionate about suicide prevention. I live with my parents and my younger brother. I have a bird, dog, and bunny.

Indiana Disability Justice Celebrates Three Years Together

April is Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness month and the Indiana Disability Justice is celebrating entering it’s fourth year of collaborating statewide to end sexual violence with people with disabilities, including developmental and cognitive disabilities. The IDJ is a coalition of survivors of violence with disabilities, self-advocates, disability service providers, anti-violence coalitions, and caregivers who have a common goal of increasing holistic wellness of people with disabilities. IDJ strategies include education and advocacy, restorative and transformative accountability, policy change, and research that help to create inclusive and supportive environments to help prevent sexual violence.

The leadership includes Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence), Skye Ashton Kantola (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Tammy Themel (AccessABILITY), Jody Powers (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Jennifer Milharcic (Consultant, Self-Advocate), and Haleigh Rigger (Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking). Together the leadership team works with the advisory council toward creating protective environments that enable thriving for people who are made vulnerable by systems inequity. IDJ 2021 goals include:

  1. Community Strengths and Needs Assessment (CSNA): reimplementing a survey tool to assess safety, independence, and sexual wellness of people with disabilities in Indiana who have experienced sexual harm;
  2. Organizational Assessment Tool: implementing a tool for use by organizations interested in preventing harm against people with disabilities, and identifying areas of improvement for disability services and opportunities for violence prevention;
  3. Educational resources: continue creating educational resources to empower people with disabilities in their self- and community-advocacy efforts, and educational resources to support service providers, caregivers, and businesses in working more effectively with people with disabilities;
  4. Resource Hub: host a website to house IDJ webinars, assessment tools, and blog sharing the voices of survivors with disabilities;
  5. Webinars: Implementing at least 5 new webinars focused on disability justice and sexual violence prevention;
  6. Evaluation: Developing and implementing creative, community‐building evaluation strategies to assess IDJ effectiveness and areas of improvement.

IDJ invites you to pick a protective environment and create or enhance the possibilities for positive and protective relations, organizations, and communities in service of an equitable society for people with disabilities, their allies, and everyone. Contact IDJ for coaching, training, and technical assistance at indisabilityjustice@gmail.com. Subscribe to the IDJ Hub to receive blog posts by survivors with disabilities, accessible prevention evaluation tools, and webinars that centralize disability in violence prevention.

From Zero to 1000: Accessibility, Inclusion, Connectedness with the IDJ Hub

Congratulations to IDJ, because in WE ARE THREE years old!!! [confetti explosions]

In December 2020, we welcomed more than ONE THOUSAND VISITORS from around the world. We started with an idea in 2017 that grew into a very successful Patreon Community in 2018. We needed to transition to the online Indiana Disability Justice and Violence Prevention Resource Hub in 2020 to reflect the growth in our capacity and reflect our commitment to continue to promote and enhance connectedness across movements, sectors, fields, and communities. We remain inclusive community owned and co-operated with the functionality of a website.

In the last three years, the IDJ established a mission, vision, and values, designed an online Disability Justice and Violence Prevention Resource HUB, developed and piloted two evaluation tools (the community survey and the organizational survey), published 30 posts on the Hub, organized and published 12 webinars, supported the development of a healthy sexuality speaker’s Hub, shared a toolkit written by a self-advocate, accessible environmental and focus group protocols. The success of the IDJ is the cross discipline/cross field fluid membership with a large core leadership team (5-members, 90% of whom are people with disabilities) who work together through temporary action teams that convene as needed to accomplish shared outcomes and develop next steps to make progress in decreasing violence and increasing equity in the state of Indiana for people with disabilities. During all-member meetings throughout the year, IDJ learns about the field or community represented by the IDJ member themselves, the connection to the problem of multiple forms of violence, and to develop solutions and tools to implement with people with disabilities for people with disabilities.

Organizations and individuals who participate in IDJ come away with an array of skills, competencies, and a shared language to prevent violence with and for people with disabilities in their workplaces and neighborhoods. The result is iterative and multiplying the number of accessible survivor-centered disability resources. IDJ is continuously developing and implementing creative, community-building evaluation strategies to assess our effectiveness as a coalition, and the effectiveness of IDJ prevention strategies, and sharing the story of IDJ’s collaborative work via the HUB. The Hub and IDJ leadership was featured by PreventConnect in a #MeToo Prevention Townhall, and National Resource Center on Domestic Violence accessed by people across the globe in 18 countries, 28 states, and more than 50 cities across two continents. The IDJ wants to understand what we are doing well, in survivor-centered and accessible ways, and how the IDJ might continue to improve and advance the work and the leadership of people with disabilities.

We were awarded funding by Indiana Department of Health to continue to support this project through paid leadership from the Rape Prevention and Education Grant FY2021-2022. The leadership includes Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence), Skye Ashton Kantola (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Tammy Themel (AccessABILITY), Jody Powers (Consultant, Self-Advocate), Jennifer Milharcic (Consultant, Self-Advocate), and Haleigh Rigger (Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking). Together the leadership team works with the advisory council toward creating protective environments that enable thriving for people who are made vulnerable by systems inequity.

Post written by: Cierra Olivia Thomas Williams, IDJ Co-Founder, Co-Leader, Prevention Specialist at Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence