[NFBO-Linn-benton] FW: Corvallis Disability Empowerment Center

Wed Jan 8 22:20:02 UTC 2020

This was fwded to me by Avery, passing it along as it sounds like a great
opportunity for us to be involved in.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Allison Hobgood <ahobgood at willamette.edu
<mailto:ahobgood at willamette.edu> >
Date: January 7, 2020 at 12:34:09 PM PST

Cc: Abby Mulcahy <abby.cmlc at gmail.com <mailto:abby.cmlc at gmail.com> >
Subject: Corvallis Disability Empowerment Center

We hope you will join us on January 15, 2020 for some preliminary,
collaborative conversation about establishing a Disability Empowerment
Center in Corvallis (working title). The Center is a burgeoning concept, and
we would love your help in crystalizing the stakes, vision, need, and shape
of such an organization. Loosely, the Center aims to be a formal cultural
and community space created both by and for people with disabilities and
their allies. More on the Center's basic premise and possibilities follow
below.

Please come to a strategic think tank session on Wednesday, January 15, 2020
from 5:30-7:00pm at the Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center (2638 NW
Jackson Ave, near OSU's campus and on the bus line). The meeting will be
scent free.

Please RSVP by January 9, 2020, and also let us know of any access
accommodations you might need.

The purpose of these initial conversations is to gather key stakeholders to
begin to parse how this idea can come to fruition. There are many resources
around town already supporting people with disabilities and creating
disability community. The goal of the Center is to enhance those
initiatives, partner with organizational entities that might not have the
ability to centralize disability in the work they do, and proudly establish
a space in Corvallis explicitly dedicated to disability culture and
community building. Please note: this is not a fundraising event. It is an
informal chance to come together and gather collective wisdom about how an
organization like this one might contribute to disability justice, equity,
and world-building. 

The CDEC might function in myriad ways. No doubt there are more:

*       as a generative place of self-discovery where disabled people can
explore all the facets of their complex identities from gender to race to
sexuality to nationality

*       as a robust cultural and community center that emblematizes,
cultivates, and supports disability pride and invites people into disability
identity and allyship

*       as a safe space for coalition, community building, and social
connection that brings together diverse populations for whom disability is a
component of their life experience

*       as a powerful site that centers disabled people and is a place off
of society's margins that they can actively claim and shape as their own

*       as an innovative educational site for peer-to-peer programing on
topics as wide-ranging as gender, sex/uality, work, education, family,
carework, housing, access, and healthcare navigation

*       as an influential community presence that educates people about
ableism and changes social misperceptions about people with disabilities

*       as a publicly visible, go-to disability resource repository-both
materially and online-that can help users identify and navigate discrete
support systems

*       as a key linchpin linking existing diverse mid-valley organizations
that support people with disabilities

*       as a visionary organization identifying, strategizing about, and
filling support gaps in our community

*       as a strategic partner in networking, connecting, and training
community stakeholders invested in disability access and equity

We hope you will join us on January 15. If you cannot and/or have
suggestions about folks who should attend, please send that info along. It
is very important that the Center (and its genesis) incorporate as diverse a
group of disabled people and their allies as possible. We want to ensure
that everyone is represented and has a place at the table as we formulate
this plan further.

Thanks, and looking forward to hearing from you!

In solidarity,

Allison Hobgood and Abby Mulcahy

-- 

Dr. Allison P. Hobgood

she/her
Associate Professor
English Department; Women's and Gender Studies Program
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301
ahobgood at willamette.edu <mailto:ahobgood at willamette.edu> 
c: 404-825-4524
w: 503-370-6211

http://www.willamette.edu/cla/english/faculty/hobgood/index.html

Author of Passionate Playgoing in Early Modern England,

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/arts-theatre-culture/drama-and
-theatre-general-interest/passionate-playgoing-early-modern-england?format=H
B

Co-editor of Recovering Disability in Early Modern England,
https://ohiostatepress.org/index.htm?books/book%20pages/Hobgood%20Recovering
.html  

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