The Seattle Disability Commission (SDC) has chosen the awardees for the 2021 Inclusion Jubilee awards. Each year, the SDC hosts an event featuring and highlighting people in the community who work to advance disability rights and justice. There are five different award categories:
- Lifetime Dianne Laurine Achievement Award
- Public Policy Award
- Advocacy Award
- Business Leader Award
- Youth Award
Lifetime Dianne Laurine Achievement Award – Kenny Salvini
The Lifetime Dianne Laurine Achievement Award is about the long-term commitment to disability justice through advocacy. We believe that Kenny’s dedication to connecting the paralysis community through support groups, activities, and group gatherings as the cofounder of The Here and Now Project, as well as his work writing for New Mobility magazine personifies this award and shows a dedication to advocacy and disability justice.
Kenny is a writer, advocate, and cofounder founder of The Here and Now Project, a social support network with a mission to connect and empower the paralysis community in the Pacific Northwest. A C3-4 quadriplegic from a 2004 snow skiing accident, Salvini is a regular contributor to New Mobility magazine on the topics of community organizing, advocacy, and accessible travel. He lives in Sumner with his wife, Claire, and their one-year-old daughter, Ila.
Public Policy Award – Ashley Cowan D’Ambrosio
The Public Policy Award goes to an elected official or public servant who demonstrates a commitment to advancing the civil legal rights of people with disabilities through policy work and legislation. We believe Ashley has done this with her work with the ASUW Student Disability Commission at the University of Washington. Where she addressed key barriers and ensured the program had the capability to influence campus policy for disabled students. She also led the review of state law to open a facility that would improve the quality of life for children with disabilities, in the process building a Human Resources while fostering relationships with key stakeholders in healthcare, education, nursing, and disability studies communities to support and grow talent acquisition capabilities.
Ashley Cowan D’Ambrosio is a Mad/Mentally Ill, Chronically Ill, Disabled activist, educator and entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Crip Riot, a disabled-owned and led company committed to bringing expressions of disability pride to the world, through unapologetic clothing, media, education, and activism.
Ashley has worked for years in the activist space, researching the systems and incentives structures which create inequities in access to society for disabled people. Her work has predominantly been within the higher education system, where she expanded the impact of the ASUW Student Disability Commission at the University of Washington by addressing key barriers to growth, and ensuring the program had the capability to greater influence campus policy in service of disabled students.
When she is not working to grow Crip Riot, she works as the CEO of Myers Fork Consulting, providing HR and ADA consulting that specializes in helping small to mid-range businesses address systemic barriers to growth.
Advocacy Award – Molly Neher
The Advocacy Award goes to an advocate with a disability who has made significant contributions to advance the rights of people with disabilities. Molly is a prime example of this by living by her belief that disability is not something to get over but rather part of your unique story. This belief has led her to work with Atlas Assistance Dogs where she is fights ableism, challenges misconceptions, and works to break the barriers many disabled people face.
Molly is the Director of Operations and Programs for Atlas Assistance Dogs, a nonprofit organization that works to increase access to service dogs for people with disabilities. It became her personal mission to challenge the prevalent ableism, misconceptions about disability, and to break the many existing barriers for disabled people, including service dog handlers.
She is proud to have been able to pursue her mission through her work with Atlas. Molly believes that disability is not something to hide or “get over”. Disability is part of someone’s unique story. In her story, disability brought her community, passion, and an amazing lifesaving four legged partner.
Business Leader Award – WeWork
The Busines Leaders Award goes to WeWork the 1201 3rd Ave Building. WeWork prides itself on placing Community at the heart of every building as a thing we do—from the businesses we support to the spaces we build. Their purpose is to harness the power of the community to make a positive impact on people and the planet.
The WeWork Department of Inclusion and Diversity’s mission is to create a workplace that promotes inclusion and fosters diversity. As a community, they have created a place of belonging for all identified communities worldwide. In 2020, warded a total of $2 million in funding to Black Small Business Owners who operate out of WeWork locations around the country. In 2021 WeWork provided 100 Women-led Companies with free workspace and mentorship for a year through their Women of tomorrow initiative. Recently all buildings successfully implemented a pronouns campaign with signage encouraging everyone to be free to be who they are with stickers of pronouns of your choice. Several other recent initiatives at WeWork include an Inclusion @ WeWork Learning series of all employees to participate in, Inclusive Hiring, and Listening Circles to foster allyship.
At the 1201 3rd Ave WeWork location, they are uniquely located along 3rd Ave in downtown Seattle which is a main public transit route, allowing accessibility and access to their workspace from the bus stop into the lobby and up the elevators to our office space. This is also true for other major public transit systems such as the Seattle Link Light Rail which has a stop on our block.
WeWork the 1201 3rd Ave Building was chosen as the Business Leader Award for their intersectionality and inclusivity of all identified communities within the Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity framework and for building coworking communities that cultivate belonging for all Entrepreneurs, Startups, and their employees, especially the Disability Entrepreneurial Community.
Youth Award – Hannah Wilson
The Youth Award goes to a youth or young adult who has conquered their disability to work in the community to contribute in the City of Seattle. Hannah Wilson (she/they) has served as co-chair on the Seattle Disability Commission and are currently a co-chair of the Seattle Environmental Justice Committee. They continue their environmental justice work through their work with Yes Farm as a farm manager and have committed their life’s work around food sovereignty and Black liberation through community building, growing food, healing and their relationships to the land and each other.
Hannah is currently a Farm Manager at Yes Farm with the Black Farmers Collective and co-chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the City of Seattle. In 2019, they graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Environmental Science and Resource Management and a minor in Geography. As a queer, disabled deaf Black non-binary person, their intersectional identity informs the way they walk through the world and the work they do. They have committed their life’s work centered around food sovereignty and Black liberation, continuing to organize around community building, growing food, healing, and our relationships to the land and each other.
Congratulations to all of the 2021 Jubilee Winners and Nominees!
