In a recent congressional report, the Environmental Protection Agency cites Next Stop, Access!: An Exploratory Working Paper on Disability Rights & Justice Throughout the Transition to Electric Buses. The agency’s Clean School Bus Program acknowledged and amplified our primary recommendation that every electric bus be equipped to serve every student, including those with disabilities.
SeededGround is so extremely proud to announce our new partnership with Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)! Our team was recently selected to create and implement accessibility plans over the next year to accompany all of M4BL’s 10th anniversary commemorative events/activities.
We will strive to thread access through all celebratory gatherings, venues, and materials to identify potential barriers and recommend comprehensive solutions. Our work will encompass pre-event planning, on-site assessment, and post-event evaluation to ensure all aspects of the event meet or exceed accessibility standards. Most importantly, our approach is grounded in Liberatory Access as coined by Disability Justice co-creator Mia Mingus. Liberatory Access most intrinsically reflects SeededGround’s praxis. It is with this profound framework that we are so emboldened as to decline the pre-drawn legal limitations of traditional accessibility measures. In contrast, we trace our capacity across lineages of creativity, abundance, intimacy, and liberation.
“M4BL (Movement for Black Lives) will celebrate its 10th anniversary from late 2024 to 2025. As part of this milestone, we seek to ensure our forthcoming commemoration is fully accessible and inclusive for all attendees. Our goal is to create a hybrid environment that is welcoming and accommodates the needs of individuals with various disabilities, including but not limited to mobility, auditory, visual, and cognitive impairments. We are committed to excellence in accessibility and inclusivity.” Excerpted from the M4BL Accessibility Contractor RFP.
This month SeededGround partnered with Able South Carolina for a special screening of Fire Through Dry Grass. The screening was followed by a talkback featuring Ebony Deloach, Cason Stark, Marly Saade, as well as Andres “Jay” Molina who is one of the filmmakers. The talkback was moderated by Justice and curated for those interested in topics of housing, violence prevention, arts, health, and issues impacting our youth, seniors, and marginalized communities.
Fire Through Dry Grass uncovers in real-time the devastation experienced by residents of a New York City nursing home during the coronavirus pandemic. Co-Directors Alexis Neophytides and Andres “Jay” Molina take viewers inside Coler, on Roosevelt Island, where Jay lives with his fellow Reality Poets, a group of mostly gun violence survivors.
Wearing snapback caps and Air Jordans, Jay and the other Reality Poets don’t look like typical nursing home residents. They used to travel around the city sharing their art and hard-earned wisdom with youth. Now, using GoPros clamped to their wheelchairs, they document their harrowing experiences on “lock down.” Covid-positive patients are moved into their bedrooms; nurses fashion PPE out of garbage bags; refrigerated-trailer morgues hum outside residents’ windows. All the while public officials deny the suffering and dying behind Coler’s brick walls.
The Reality Poets’ rhymes flow throughout the film, underscoring their feelings that their home is now as dangerous as the streets they once ran and—as summer turns to fall turns to winter—that they’re prisoners without a release date. But instead of history repeating itself on this tiny island with a dark history of institutional neglect and abandonment, Fire Through Dry Grass shows these disabled Black and brown artists refusing to be abused, confined, erased.
Click here to learn More About this powerful Film!
The Black Feminist Fund (BFF) is a remarkable resource for Black folks worldwide. During a time where efforts to fund Black women are being actively attacked, the deeply intentional and radically intersectional work of the BFF is even more critical. Justice will soon join the Black Feminist Fund Grant Review Committee in hopes of further supporting the essential work of Black feminists around the globe.
“The purpose of the Black Feminist Fund is to significantly increase the resources available to Black feminist movements. When Black feminist groups have the resources they deserve, they are strengthened to transform societies. Moving resources over the long term to Black feminist movements unlocks the power and potential of this change. We make grants to Black feminist groups that have bold visions, are using innovative strategies and taking daring action towards self-determination, justice, solidarity and equity.”
The Disability Inclusion: Required podcast, brought to you by the Disability & Philanthropy Forum, now has a new host! Justice is dusting off that Journalism degree for this one! She has been rooted in radio since her college days as a show host, news director and eventually the first Blind General Manager of her college station at Marquette University.
Join Justice and several powerhouse guests this upcoming season of Disability Inclusion Required. You know it wouldn’t be a SeededGround collaboration without us having some incredible stories, interviews and content lined up!
More details related to release dates and featured guests will be coming soon. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts!
SeededGround and the World Resources Institute are so excited to announce the launch of Next Stop, Access! An Exploratory Paper on Disability Rights and Justice Throughout the Transition to Electric School Buses!
Authored by Justice Shorter, Valerie Novack & Alyssa Curran, this paper delves into disability specific considerations, ideas and insights related to electric school bus transitions nationwide. Our most sincere appreciations to all of the youth, parents and professionals who contributed to this effort!
Click here to read/download an accessible HTML version of the full paper.
Check out the video below to learn more about the importance of including students with disabilities throughout the transition to electric school bus fleets.
SeededGround and The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies are so proud to announce that Portraits & Portals is coming soon!
Portraits & portals is an artistic initiative designed to illustrate the impact of disasters and crises on people of color with disabilities. Disaster experiences will be venerated via visual art, poetry, short stories, audio dramas, music etc.
Slated to start later this summer, the year-long project will pair 6 disabled artists/creatives of color with 6 disaster survivors of color. In doing so, this curated series will portray crisis conditions that emerge at the intersection of racism and ableism. Artists and survivors will be extended the creative freedom to express and amplify life at the epicenter of emergencies. Each artistic piece will serve as a portal; a space for safe passage where the past can be re-membered and the future is re-imagined by disabled bodies, minds, wisdom and dreams.
Are you an artist or disaster survivor of color who would like to participate in this series? Sign up below and we will reach out in coming months with further details.
We are so thrilled to soon be in conversation with Dara Baldwin, author of To Be A Problem: A Black Woman’s Survival in the Racist Disability Rights Movement. Join Justice and Dara for what will surely be a thought provoking and soul stirring event.
We are thrilled to announce that New Growth, SeededGround’s bi-monthly newsletter, is now here! Click on the link below to access the May 2024 edition and subscribe to receive future New Growth directly via email.
Check out this new episode of Down To The Struts, a dynamic Podcast hosted by Qudsiya Naqui. Listen in as Justice joins Qudsiya in conversation about how her personal lineage has led to a concentration on crises, a discussion on the Disaster Justice Guidebook and a preview of emerging projects that are on SeededGround’s dream docket.
