Standing at the Intersection of Race and Disability is Rabia Khedr
Description
It's one thing to have a disability and feel left out, it's another to be part of a marginalized group as well. We chat with Rabia Khedr, founder of Race and Disability Canada in this Encouraging Abilities podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
Standing at the Intersection of Race and Disability is Rabia Khedr
Welcome once again to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. I'm your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Now today we're talking about one thing that is actually two things.
In this world, unfortunately, we see a lot of discrimination. It can happen to any marginalized group, such as people DDA advocates for, and those are people with developmental disabilities. In our podcast, we also talk about accessibility and disability of all kinds. Now, people with developmental disabilities are more likely to be bullied, they're less likely to finish school, and less likely to hold down a job, even though many are perfectly capable of doing so. Now, another form of discrimination we see around the world is the one that's based on race.
Now, what if those two became entwined? Well then you have a potential for intersection of problems when it comes to acceptance and accessibility. Joining me today to discuss the intersection of race and disability is Rabia Kheder from newly formed organization Race and Disability Canada. Rabia is dedicated to equity and justice for persons with disabilities, women, and diverse communities.
They most recently served as board member of Accessibility Standards Canada and the Minister's Disability Advisory Group and previously served as a commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She is the National Director of Disability Without Poverty and CEO of Dean Support Services. A founder
of Race and Disability Canada. She is also a board member of the Muslim Council of Peel, in Ontario of course, and a board member of the Federation of Muslim Women.
Rabia has received numerous awards for humanitarian services, including a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She holds a Bachelor's of Arts from the University of Toronto and a Master's of Arts, and she is also legally blind. So Rabia, thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you so much, Evan, for having me. And perfect pronunciation of my name. Thank you. Nailed it. That's good. Pardon me. Now.
Let's, right off the bat, you founded Race and Disability Canada. How did you get this off the ground? Well, I've been doing this work for years, almost 30 years. So my initial, you know, grassroots advocacy came out of an organization called Ethnoracial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario. And we were talking about the layers of barriers that people with disabilities face when it comes to race, faith, culture, gender.
age coupled with disability. And we didn't use the word intersectionality because we were really grassroots. We weren't running around in academia having these conversations. And fast forward, continuing that work, I discovered that there were huge gaps. And as somebody with lived experience, I'm blind. I grew up with siblings with intellectual or developmental disabilities for whom I was an advocate.
and or even substitute decision maker in different contexts. I recognized the exclusion. I lived the exclusion in many ways when accessing supports and services. And there were many other groups that popped up with similar needs through the Tamil community, South Asian community, at large, Asian communities, racialized peoples. And...
When I participated in federal space at the beginning of this century, you know, the 2000s, I discovered that our national conversation looked very white. There wasn't a lot of diversity from an intersectionality perspective, visibly present in the national disability landscape. And I stepped back and I focused local because I didn't belong there.
Fast forward a few years later, I went back, I did a master's degree, I founded Dean Support Services, and I went back to engage nationally. When I went back to engage nationally in 2017, I realized that again, nothing's changed. We still look the same.
culture still monopolizes the conversation on disability and disability policy in this country. So I came back and I said this isn't good enough. I reached out to my friends in other organizations and I said we need to form Race and Disability Canada to specifically talk about this intersection that makes us very visible.
coupled with our disability and poses all sorts of obstacles and barriers in our full participation in society. And that is equally true for folks with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Yes, absolutely true. So when you want to say how do you get it off the ground, how many people have been involved in this? And I know you're largely funded by the government of Canada, correct? Well, we did manage to secure a grant.
last year and yes, the work that we're doing right now is federally funded, which is really great. They have taken on some of the equity language and conversations that I've been having serving on the ministers advisory group and serving on accessibility standards Canada initially. It's really refreshing that they are looking at disability from an intersectional lens, particularly looking at that intersection of...
equity issues around race. And so we did some work initially at the grassroots level. We continued to talk about this issue wherever we could voluntarily or in other work. But really being able to mobilize resources and do real solid work hasn't happened until the federal government stepped in with its grant.
Right, I mean anything like this on a grassroots level is, it's got to be tough to do. It's got to be tough to find people to back it and it takes money to do something like this. It definitely takes money, especially when disabled people are leading the work themselves. We are the experts and it's important that we have the supports we need to leverage our expertise to bring the change that we need.
In terms of working with the government, have you been able to change some of the language within policy? What sort of effect have you been able to have so far? Well, like I said, they actually have put in their calls for proposals, applications for funding. They've recognized that there needs to be work done on equity and intersectionality. So, for example, at Dean Support Services,
just secured a grant specifically looking at equity and people with disabilities and knowledge mobilization. So this is another project that we will be getting off the ground, creating tools and resources and building capacity of the disability sector in Canada to appreciate, understand and respond more effectively.
to the lived realities of diverse communities of people with disabilities that have called Canada home. What is the IDEA project? And how does that relate to race and disability Canada? Well the IDEA project is essentially IDEA's the acronym, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility. So it's really to bring together research.
to better educate and inform disability organizations, employers, and society at large, how to better address the needs of people with disabilities who are racialized, who represent equity seeking groups.
needing accessibility, needing accommodation, but to look at the whole person who needs to belong, whether they are accessing employment opportunities or other opportunities within our society. And how are you reaching out to these groups and what sort of support and reaction have you been getting? So we are creating tools and resources, we are holding
focus groups, we are making presentations. So we're really bringing together the information and the needs out there to be able to appropriately respond. And you're doing podcasts. Yes we are. And what about Diversity Works? Is that separate from all of this?
That's totally separate. That's me, you know, in 2000, end of 2001 saying, I am quitting my full-time job because, you know, I worked for an employment service providing supports for people with disabilities and accommodation and access to employment. And I, you know, found myself in a situation where a colleague of mine was dismissed, who has passed since then, who had a disability.
And I was like, whoa, if we cannot retain a disabled person in an agency providing services to disabled people to find jobs, something's wrong here. I can't deal with this anymore. So I needed to, you know, balance my philosophy and my work with my family life. And I walked and decided to open my own consulting company so that I can do the work that has impact. And is that, I mean, outside of Race and Disability Canada
is the consulting company that's still your sort of bread and butter type thing? No, no, it's just a side hustle that sits on the back burner. And once in a while, somebody invites me to be a keynote speaker or something like that. I'm really not taking on large projects. It's more about speaking gigs. But my real work is disability without poverty right now. Right. That's right. You're quite, quite heavily involved with that.
And you talk about the employment and disability, it's, you know, that'
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