New York City · September 2026
EVERY BODY BELONGS
Safety never goes out of style.
Activating Change brought disability, safety, and justice into three New York spaces: a film screening and conversation, the streets during Fashion Week, and the Kering Foundation’s Caring for Women dinner.
01 / Accessibility + Justice for All
Lived experience led the conversation.
We began the week with our partners at Fountain House, hosting Accessibility + Justice for All, an evening of film and conversation about disability, violence, incarceration, and what it takes to build systems that work for people with disabilities and Deaf people.
After a 20-minute excerpt from Being Michelle, filmmakers, Deaf and disabled leaders with lived experience of incarceration, funders, and Activating Change examined how failures of communication, access, and independence extend across public institutions and the criminal legal system.
Moderated by Kindred Motes, the conversation featured Mae Thornton Mehra, producer of Being Michelle; Jordan Landry, disability advocate and President and CEO of Express Executive Solutions; Tremmel Watson, Public Policy Analyst at Disability Rights California; Susan Shah, Executive Director of Women Building Up; and Nancy Smith, Executive Director of Activating Change.
Panelists connected disability justice with criminal legal reform, gender justice, racial and economic justice, and philanthropy. Their discussion asked what funders and institutions must resource to make communication and independent participation standard, rather than dependent on individual goodwill.
02 / Every Body Belongs
Then we took the message to the streets.
During New York Fashion Week, Activating Change launched Every Body Belongs, putting messages about disability, access, safety, inclusion, and justice directly into the streets of New York.
People with disabilities and Deaf people belong in our communities, our movements, and our vision for a safer and more just world.
Safety never goes out of style.
Disability and Deaf experiences belong in the conversations shaping safety, justice, and freedom.
On screen
Being Michelle
Guests watched an excerpt from the award-winning documentary Being Michelle, about a Deaf woman with autism who survived five years of incarceration and abuse in a Florida prison that never gave her a way to communicate. Michelle now uses her artwork to tell her story and heal from the trauma she endured. Her experience grounded the discussion of communication access, survivor support, and the criminal legal system.
03 / Caring for Women
And we took it to a global stage.
Activating Change was one of four organizations selected as beneficiaries of the Kering Foundation’s 2026 Caring for Women dinner. The event raised more than $5 million for organizations working to end violence against women and children.
Through Activating Change’s film, the experiences of survivors with disabilities and Deaf survivors became part of a major philanthropic conversation about gender-based violence.
Women and girls with disabilities and Deaf women experience extraordinarily high rates of violence, yet are too often missing from the movements, conversations, and investments intended to end it. Their experiences belong at the center of this work.
This is what change looks like
Lived experience
Putting people closest to these systems at the center of conversations about what needs to change.
Visibility
Making disability and Deaf experiences impossible to overlook in our communities and movements.
Movement building
Bringing this work into new spaces, reaching new audiences, and building a bigger movement for safety and justice.
New York / September 2026
Every body belongs.
From the streets of New York to a conversation with advocates and funders, the campaign made disability, access, safety, inclusion, and justice visible to new audiences.
Be part of the change
And we’re just getting started.
Activating Change works to end the widespread victimization and mass incarceration of people with disabilities and Deaf people. Join us in putting lived experience at the center, bringing this work into new spaces, and building a bigger movement for safety and justice.