Disability History Week being considered in California legislature

Moussavian, age 19, is a Youth Leadership Alumna and member of the Yo! Disabled and Proud Advocacy Organization. She joined SVILC's staff in March 2010 as an Emerging Youth Leader where she works to ensure the success of the youth programs at SVILC.

Together she and fellow Yo! Disabled and Proud member, Allie Cannington, testified about ACR 162 on May 11, 2010 at the Assembly Human Services Committee, where it was passed unanimously. The bill is now heading to the Assembly floor. This testimony was a key component of the youth organizing strategy to engage decision makers to support the History Week Resolution.

“The most important thing this resolution has the ability to accomplish is decrease the experience of people with disabilities being teased. I have experienced being teased as a young child and it impacted me in a variety of ways,” Moussavian says.

During Disability History Week schools and public and private institutions of higher education will be encouraged to dedicate classroom instructional time or activities about disability history and issues concerning their community. In addition, so will state and local agencies, and private businesses and the general public to learn more about the disability community and to celebrate and honor its role in contemporary American society.

Youth Leadership Program underway at SVILC

Eliza Riley, SVILC’s Youth Leadership and Outreach Coordinator, a person with a disability herself, knows how important it is for disabled youth to have peer support and role models to identify with. “I want to be a role model for working in a new and different way,” Riley says.

Other components of the Youth Leadership Program include a Youth Advisory Board and Peer Mentoring. The Youth Advisory Board will provide youth-based leadership and direction for the program. Peer Mentors will provide support and guidance to the younger participants coming up through the program.

This program was made possible from a California Department of Rehabilitation grant, awarded to SVILC in partnership with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers.

Riley is still looking for participants ages 14-25, and there is no deadline to apply. There is no cost to participate or apply. For more information contact her at 408-894-9041 Ext. 222.

SVILC adopts new mission statement

These values will help guide us to our vision, which is a world with intergenerational, informed and interdependent communities, where all difference is valued, disability pride exists, and people have a deep sense of shared values, responsibility, and where the economic system doesn't define and drive the community.

All of these elements come together to form our mission which is our reason to be. Our mission statement reads: SVILC is a cross-disability, intergenerational, and multicultural disability justice organization that creates fully inclusive communities that value the dignity, equality, freedom and worth of every human being. We do this by building disability identity, culture and pride; creating opportunities for personal and community transformation; and partnering with others to ensure that civil and human rights are protected.