October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, or NDEAM. Every year, the Lurie Institute observes NDEAM to honor the participation of disabled people in employment in all fields and occupations and to celebrate their contribution to our shared social and economic life. NDEAM's theme for 2022 is "Disability: Part of the Equity Equation."
In honor of NDEAM, the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy and its three federally funded centers, the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities, the Community Living Policy Center, and the National Center for Disability and Pregnancy Research, invite blog or video blog submissions centered on one or more of the following themes:
- your experience of disability equity (or of the absence of disability equity) in a past or current job or workplace
- your thoughts and advice on how to include disability equity in the equity practices at our jobs and workplaces
- your attempts to achieve and sustain disability equity in one or more of your jobs or workplaces as a person with a disability or as a person with a disability looking for employment
- other thoughts or experiences you've had related to disability equity.
It's perfectly fine to ask to be listed as "Anonymous Contributor" when we publish the selected blog posts. Those selected for publication in this call will receive $100 for their blog post.
To submit a post, send an email with "NDEAM 2022 blog call" in the Subject line to ptacek@brandeis.edu.
Below are the submissions we selected for our 2021 NDEAM blog collection to give you inspiration. Thank you to all who participated.
Envisioning a World Where Employers Trust Disabled Employees, by Anonymous Contributor*
I Didn’t Realize I Needed a Schedule Until I Didn’t Have One Anymore, by Anonymous Contributor*
We Need to See It’s Okay to be Disabled, by Anonymous Contributor*
This is What People Mean When They Say Disability, by R. Quinn Weiner (they/them/theirs)
I Want to Talk About ADHD..., by Kyle Richard
How My Being Autistic Affects the Way I Work, by Finn Gardiner
*For this collection, we wanted to make sure that anyone could submit a story, whether they are public about their disability or not. When folks submitted their story, they were able to choose how they wanted their name displayed. “Anonymous Contributor” was one of those options.