Show Notes:
Tiffany Yu is the CEO & Founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise working to elevate disability pride. Tiffany is also the Founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, a monthly micro-grant that has awarded about $59k to 59 disability projects in 9 countries, and a content creator with almost 160k+ followers across platforms. She serves on the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council and was a 2020 Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit. At the age of 9, Tiffany became disabled as a result of a car accident that also took the life of her father.
She is a 3x TEDx speaker and spoke on 5 sessions at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. She has been featured in Marie Claire, the Guardian, and Forbes.
In this episode we discuss:
- The importance of finding your voice and stepping into your story
- One simple thing businesses can do for new employees, that can surprisingly set a tone of inclusion
- Why 96% of disabled people don’t disclose their disability to their employer
- The power of community, and the important connection between community and confidence
Key Takeaways:
- By sharing our stories and aspects of our identity that diverge from a standard narrative, conversation by conversation, we give awareness to a more complete spectrum of the human experience. Seeing diversity represented around us gives us permission to share the diverse intersectionality found within us. Showing up authentically is contagious, and this is where true connection and community thrive.
- The inclusion and belonging found in community is essential to satisfying the fundamental needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. Only after our fundamental needs are met are we able to start rising up against the hierarchy to contribute our gifts to the world. Inclusion and belonging create an environment in which each of us can thrive.
- Here are 3 ways that you can support Tiffany’s mission to increase intersectional disability representation and democratize visibility:
- Hire people with disabilities
- Incorporate an accessibility lens into your natural way of operating by asking yourself “would a person without sight/sound/full mobility/etc. be able to participate in this?”
- Donate to the Disability Empowerment Fund
References:
Tiffany’s social media:
