Imani Barbarin: Creating Accessible Spaces for Belonging

What does it mean to create truly accessible spaces within your collective work? 

At the 2023 Collective Impact Action Summit, we explored this question and more in a keynote conversation with Imani Barbarin (Crutches and Spice), who is a disability and inclusion activist, speaker and content creator.

In this fireside chat, Imani Barbarin and Miya Cain (FSG) discuss what components can create a truly accessible culture of Belonging, including how directly addressing the inequities experienced by disabled people is necessary to reach broader societal change. They also explore the long impact of the Covid pandemic, and how the intersection of multiple identities is important to understand when building accessible spaces.

Preceding this discussion, we’re delighted to share a spoken word performance by artist and facilitator Kayla Brooks, titled 'You Belong Here'. Introducing both Kayla’s performance and the following keynote discussion is Cindy Santos, Senior Associate at the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions.

Footnotes and References

• Crutches and Spice website and on TikTok, Crutches_and_spice
• Read Reflections from the Action Summit on Accessibility and Belonging by Ajai Scott (FSG) for highlights and reflections from this keynote.
• Podcast: Narrative Change and Disability with Imani Barbarin
• Blog: Navigating Consent and Allyship by Tracy Timmons-Gray, Collective Impact Forum
• The Curb-Cut Effect by Angela Glover Blackwell, Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Disability Visibility Project–an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture, founded by Alice Wong
• Autistic Self Advocacy Network–an advocacy organization run by and for people on the autism spectrum, founded by Ari Ne’eman
• Sins Invalid: a disability justice performance project
• Disability Scoop: the largest news organization in the nation covering developmental disabilities, founded by Michelle Diament and Shaun Heasley
• A Disability History of the United States, by Kim E. Nielsen
• Black Disability Politics, by Dr. Sami Schalk
• Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, by Judith Heumann

More on Collective Impact

Infographic: What is Collective Impact?
Resource List: Getting Started in Collective Impact

The Intro music, entitled “Running,” was composed by Rafael Krux, and can be found .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}