Inclusive Generation Equality Collective: An experience of connection, learning, and professional development
By Estefanía Cubillos Nova
***Esta publicación está disponible en español aquí***
In 2021, I joined the Inclusive Generation Equality Collective (IGEC) to advocate for and create inclusive gender equality spaces and discussions at the global level.
I first learned about the IGEC at a training session delivered by MIUSA, an organization of persons with disabilities from the United States. I had been searching for a group where I could share experiences at the intersection of disability and gender with other women with disabilities, but there was little interest in Panama, where I live, to talk about topics like feminism. In international settings, where such discussions were being held, Spanish interpretation was rare, which imposed a barrier on me. When I realized the IGEC offered exactly what I was looking for, I decided to join it.
The IGEC was formed to participate collectively as feminists with disabilities in the Generation Equality Forums, convened by the United Nations. In the early stages of the Collective, we worked together to survey feminists with disabilities and participate in the Forums. Even though the Forums were inaccessible, these barriers shaped my path of work and advocacy over the next two years alongside colleagues from around the world.
Little by little, I became acquainted with previously unfamiliar concepts and was able to participate more in the work of the Collective. Our work together with colleagues around the world led to one of our greatest collective achievements — the development of the Feminist Accessibility Protocol in December 2022. This groundbreaking tool allowed me to connect with and get to know the stories of other women and nonbinary people with disabilities in Latin America and other regions and led to a set of commitments to ensure that feminists with disabilities are effectively included in decision-making spaces on gender equality.
While drafting the Protocol, I envisioned the ways in which our work would contribute greatly to the feminist movement, bringing crucial accessibility guidance and a disability lens to gender equality agendas and helping achieve effective inclusion in the progress for gender equality.
In the early days, we had to work together to make the space accessible for everyone, including addressing language barriers. I remember some meetings I attended that lacked simultaneous interpretation into Spanish due to a lack of funding. However, our colleagues from Women Enabled International provided consecutive interpretation, addressing this challenge with kindness and determination. Thinking back to these challenges comforts me because we have come a long way since then!
Now, in 2023, in addition to offering simultaneous interpretation, some of our internal meetings are also held in Spanish, creating language balance and fostering language justice, a term I learned in the IGEC. Even in tough times, I remained strong and found support in colleagues such as Cristina Dueñas Díaz-Tendero and Alana Carvalho, who have grown professionally with me.
This fascinating work has helped me connect with colleagues from other countries and regions. Even though I have not met most of them in person, I have learned a great deal from them.
But this year, I have been able to take my work with the Inclusive Generation Equality Collective to meetings and events in person. For me, this has included advocating in spaces such as the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) in New York with some partners from the Collective, who I met in person for the first time in this space. We used CSW67 as a platform to highlight the importance of supporting, signing on to, and implementing the Feminist Accessibility Protocol.
I have also drawn on my experience as a journalist to support IGEC communication campaigns. I have always looked for a space that would enable discussions on feminism and disability, two issues that are rarely discussed from an intersectional and accessible perspective. This work has proven to be very challenging yet rewarding, as it has helped me step out of my comfort zone and open myself to cultural diversity and dissent even more, thanks to my participation in the IGEC.
I hope you will also become a part of this incredible work as a member of our Collective. Don’t take my word for it; join us and see for yourself! You are welcome to attend our info session on the IGEC and how to join it, that we will hold on January 16, 2024.
About the author
Estefanía Cubillos Nova is a journalist. She is currently studying for a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), partly thanks to the excellent references she obtained from the Inclusive Generation Equality Collective.
