Disability Justice Through Indigenous Ceremony No More Silence has partnered with the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto on an exciting Disability Justice project. Our hope is to engage with Indigenous community members who experience challenges and barriers when attempting to access cultural and ceremonial spaces in order to develop guidelines to increase the accessibility of these spaces. In the current phase of the project from now until the end of May, we are seeking Indigenous participants with a variety of accessibility needs. We will host zoom meetings to discuss their experiences and share ideas on how Indigenous community spaces can address ableism and improve access to culture and ceremony. We are able to provide a $100 honorarium for ca 1 1/2 hours of your time. We will have ASL interpreters available for the discussions in group or one-on-one. We also want to talk about Indigenous concepts of ability and impairment in relation to disability justice. We are looking for participants with lived experience of access needs and/or who have experienced barriers related to physical, mobility, sensory (sight and hearing), intellectual, developmental, mental health, or trauma. In order to register for these meetings, please contact nomoresilenceorg@gmail.com . In a later phase of the project we will be building an accessible sweat lodge. The lodge will be run by Elder, Wanda Whitebird, who has been using a motorized wheelchair as a result of a spinal cord injury in January 2019.
