At NAD 2014, there were two workshops on diversity, intersectionality, and social justice. DeafHope is committed to those values in our work with survivors and our communities.
The first one was a panel with diverse NAD members – discussing their experiences with NAD. The main point was that to grow NAD and make it stronger, NAD cannot just invite diverse people to get involved and that’s it. To grow and move faster, NAD will need to go out to different communities and become involved with them.
Mark Ramirez and Jonathan Kessel from DYUSA gave a workshop on social justice. They focused on many different types of oppression and privilege. They encouraged us to think about intersectionality, which means to recognize and embrace all types of identities in our community.
We include those values of social justice in developing our shared leadership model with our Empowerment Directors. Many people were curious about how we run DeafHope using shared leadership and wanted to know more. We will share our progress as we grow as an organization. We invite you to share your ideas and thoughts with us!