Category: Sourced From The Soil: Updates & Upcoming Events

SeededGround has officially partnered with Pod Access! Together  we will work to develop and launch ‘Amplified: A disability Justice Audio Festival’! As we strive to secure funding to make this extraordinary virtual gathering happen in 2027, we invite you to spread the word that Amplified is on the horizon! If you, or someone you know, would like to join us as a funder, sponsor or partner, please email us directly at SeededGround@JusticeShorter.com.

About Amplified

An EARresistable audio festival that amplifies the artistry of disabled storytellers, producers, documentarians and  podcasters. Imagined and implemented by SeededGround, Amplified is a festival for disabled communities by disabled creatives.

Who We Will Amplify

Inspired by the artistic activism of Sins Invalid, Amplified will intentionally center disabled creatives of color who are queer, trans, sick, migrants, incarcerated  or anyone else relegated to the margins of mainstream movement spaces. This  virtual festival is proudly powered by a praxis of Disability Justice (DJ). Participants are thus encouraged to enter imaginative pieces that explore both a principle and a practice of DJ. In doing so, festival listeners will not only discover talented disabled creators, but will also receive diverse insights on how to live disabled dreams out loud.   

About Pod Access

Founded by Alice Wong, Thomas Reid and Cheryl Green, POD Access understands that “disability touches everything from culture, to economy, to climate. Disability isn’t a specialty topic, but instead is an essential lens for telling stories. POD Access offers aspiring, beginning, and established d/Deaf and disabled podcasters an approachable, easy-going experience to build community, learn about podcasting, and grow an audience. We respect access needs and are led by a disabled team.”

This month Justice Moderated the keynote discussion for the My Dog Is My Home annual Conference. She was joined in conversation by Aimee Gilbreath, President of PetSmart Charities and Brad Kieserman, Vice President of Disaster Operations & Logistics for the American Red Cross. Together they discussed disaster inequities, houseless people with pets, assistance animals, undocumented survivors, pet protections/preparedness and several other timely topics.

To check out this conversation, visit the My Dog Is My Home official website for updates on the availability of conference recordings.

Justice is back in the  Black Policy Lab! This year’s theme is “Black is Human, Too”. Join Justice and hundreds of others who love Black life, culture, history and futures. This 8^th annual virtual gathering is free and filled to the brim with brilliant thinkers, organizers, dreamers and builders.

Justice will serve as a panelist during a session titled, “Unbought & Unbossed”.

Session Overview

Independent voices are disrupting the media landscape—challenging performative advocacy and those who distort the demands of directly impacted communities. This session amplifies authentic, community-rooted perspectives and issues a bold call to reclaim narrative power, accountability, and movement integrity.

Click here to register!

SeededGround is proud to join Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute on a new endeavor that will evaluate approaches for addressing the divide within the autism community around the use of applied behavioral analysis (ABA)-based interventions,

SG will serve as one of 2 facilitative leads on this project.

Excerpts from the official press release:

The effort builds on a collaborative, multidisciplinary, international team of clinicians, researchers and autistic community leaders — co-founded by Dena Gassner, PhD, senior research scientist in the Autism Institute’s Life Course Outcomes Program and Social Connections and Treatment Lab, also a principal investigator of the grant — that has sought to make progress on these issues for almost four years.  

“The divide between those who have found the treatments harmful and those who have found it helpful has not allowed for safe and supportive discourse to find a place of understanding, healing and advocacy for autistic individuals,” said Gassner.

The aim of the project is to examine different ways of bringing these groups – who have disparate experiences, but a common goal of improving the lives of autistic people – together to guide the future of this field. Specifically, the project is designed to study engagement — the ways in which different people come together and feel heard and valued.  This project leverages a community-driven, participatory team science approach to examine different methods for centering autistic people in conversations on the use of ABA for autistic people.

Read the full press release here.

If you’re not already caught up, now is the perfect time to press play on Disability Inclusion Required! Hosted monthly by Justice, the most recent episode of the show features an extraordinary conversation with Cara Page and Erica Woodland, co-authors of Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care & Safety.

The conversation explores the principles of healing justice and its connections to disability justice, highlighting the importance of collective care and the need to challenge individualistic and curative models of care that perpetuate harm and oppression. Cara, Erica and Justice discuss how care practices observed by communities of color have been criminalized, and they provide examples of how funders can intervene to support collective trauma transformation.

Listen in as they also address the challenges of adopting an anti-capitalist practice within the philanthropic sector and the deep connections between anti-blackness, the medical industrial complex, and the prison industrial complex. Together they dream of a future where healing can find interdependence, focus on freedom, transform oppression, and free our hearts and minds. 

Click Here to Listen Now!

The Black Lives Matter  Reference Handbook Is Out And It Includes A Personal Essay from Justice 

This multifaceted reference handbook surveys the history, development, leadership, and priorities of Black Lives Matter (BLM), including the group’s efforts to raise public awareness of police violence in communities of color.

Beginning with the infamous incidents of police brutality that spurred the creation and growth of BLM, this book goes on to profile leading and influential activists and organizations, such as the NAACP, movement co-founder Alicia Garza, and civil rights activist and athlete Colin Kaepernick.

A broad range of personal essays explore the persistent problems of police violence and racial discrimination in America.

Click here to purchase the handbook

Read Justice’s Contributed Essay Here

SeededGround, the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies & June Kailes recently released The Roadmap: Making Transit Evacuations Real for People with Disabilities!

Buckle up, the Roadmap boldly positions people with disabilities in the driver seat! Throughout this new  informative resource, you will discover creative emergency approaches and eyewitness accounts from some of the nation’s leading thinkers, attorneys, advocates and researchers. The Roadmap is for anyone ready to explore new routes for equitable evacuations. It is written in honor of the progress people with disabilities have led and in hope of the dignified future we all deserve.

The Roadmap includes a  clear view of the current landscape of inclusive evacuations. It reviews current data concerns and assesses pervasive problems peppered throughout evacuation plans/practices. Readers will find extensive examples from Think Tank attendees regarding considerations that are consistently absent or insufficient within emergency evacuation plans.

Click here to download an accessible PDF of the roadmap.

Explore the new Portraits & Portals website to check out all of the artwork premiered this summer! The series will also ideally be on display via a pop-up exhibition near you next year!

This artistic initiative was designed to illustrate the impact of disasters and crises on people of color with disabilities. The project paired 9 disabled artists/creatives of color with 9 disabled disaster survivors of color to amplify issues at the intersection of Disaster Justice, Disability Justice and Racial Justice issues. Together, their creative collaborations transform lived experiences into works of art, including visual art, poetry, and music.

Our people deserve to live into a future framed by the truth of what we’ve endured and the joy of what we’re brave enough to imagine.

Sign up to host the exhibit at your college or in your community/city during the 2026 mobile exhibition.

Greetings Everyone,

This message serves as a formal invitation  to the World Premiere of Portraits & Portals on August 27^th from  2:00pm-4:00pm EST! SeededGround & The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies welcome you to join us for this stunning virtual showcase of disabled talent and truth-telling about the impact of disasters on people of color with disabilities.

Registration

You can click here to register.

Description

Portraits & Portals is an artistic initiative designed to illustrate the impact of disasters and crises on people of color with disabilities. The project paired 9 disabled artists/creatives of color with 9 disabled disaster survivors of color to amplify issues at the intersection of Disaster Justice, Disability Justice and Racial Justice issues. Together, their creative collaborations transform lived experiences into works of art, including visual art, poetry, and music.

Now the time has arrived for us to virtually gather as we reveal final artworks, engage with the storytellers/artists behind each piece and to share creative space with Crip community.

Help Us Spread The Word

You can help us promote the premiere by posting about the event via social media or by passing on this email to others who might also wish to attend. You can click here to access our Media Toolkit with several pre-designed social media posts along with relevant alt text. 

Accommodations

This event will have the following language access provided:

– American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation

– Spanish interpretation

– French interpretation

– Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART) captioning in English

For additional accommodations, email Priya@disasterstrategies.org by 8/13.

SeededGround began working with the Movement for Black Lives in the fall of 2024. For nearly a year our teams collaborated to lovingly weave Liberatory Access throughout all of M4BL’s 10^th Anniversary Commemorative Events. Check out Justice’s remarks about the power of Black people with disabilities on July 26^th during the commemorative ceremony in Cleaveland Ohio.