Happy International Day of Persons with Disabilities! Don’t worry if you didn’t realize this was a thing until now… I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t, either. But this day was actually instituted in 1992 by the UN, to promote rights and well-being of people with disabilities, and to increase awareness to people with disabilities in all aspects of life.
The 2018 theme is “empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality.” I love this theme! It fits in perfectly with my own passions and goals, and everything that I’m working toward during my time as Ms. Wheelchair USA. I’m really excited to learn about this holiday, and to be able to share the message with other people, too!
I thought that in honor of the day, I’d share some of my favorite disability advocates that I’ve found via social media. They’re great people to follow to learn more about disability issues, and living with a disability.
Molly Burke
Molly is an amazing YouTuber who is also blind. She makes some great videos – some about disability, some not. This recent video of hers is one that I highly recommend watching – it’s a great reminder about why people may not always want to talk about their disability.
Alice Wong
I talked about Alice Wong before in this post. She has SMA like I do, and is really involved in disability advocacy and activism. She’s great at sharing issues and amplifying people’s voices. If you want to learn more about disability issues, she’s a great person to follow.
Jillian Mercado
Jillian was the first model with a disability featured in Teen Vogue, which I think is so cool and so impressive. Her work focuses on increasing representation of people with disabilities in the media, and she shares stories of her travels on Instagram and Twitter, so follow along! She actually got to go to the UN in New York earlier this year to speak about disability representation.
Nyle DiMarco
You may know Nyle from his Dancing with the Stars win – if you do, you may already know that he’s deaf. Follow him to see the work that he’s been doing since his win to increase awareness to Deaf culture and other disability issues.
