This Black History Month, our aim is to continue to uplift, empower, strengthen and encourage the Black and Disability community! In this article, we are paying tribute to Black and Disabled Creators who have used their platform to do just that.

onoran Center director Jacy Farkas had the pleasure of participating as a 2024 Professional Fellows Program (PFP) on Inclusive Civic Engagement Outbound Fellow. She traveled to Kampala, Uganda in November 2024 to support the follow-on project of PFP Fellow mentee, Denis Ouma.

Reproductive health is a great interest of mine, so it was exciting to be able to support the Sonoran Center’s Pregnancy and Parenting Support for People with Disabilities project. Through this journey I have seen myself becoming comfortable with new things and I expanded my knowledge in the field.

During the spring 2024 semester, I had the pleasure of volunteering for the Children’s Clinics in Tucson. The experience illustrated how important it is to create programs in which children with disabilities can feel comfortable to be themselves, and can join inclusive and welcoming spaces in activities they enjoy.

I attended the Improving Healthcare for Adults with Autism and/or Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (A/I/DD) event held by First Place, a global leadership institute, at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. This event showed me the many factors that go into developing new policies and implementing them most effectively.

On November 3rd through 5th, 2024, the Sonoran Center’s staff - Jacy Farkas, Celina Urquidez, Drew Milne, Agnes Attakai - and trainees, Diba Fallah and Jenny Haggerty, attended the annual Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) conference in Washington, D.C.

I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) conference in Washington, D.C. from November 4-8, 2023. The AUCD network hosts this annual conference for people across the nation to come together and share their experiences. This event brings together professionals, trainees, and advocates to connect and celebrate the amazing work being done in the disability field.

During my final year as an undergraduate studying public health, I started an internship that really changed how I see disability issues and communication. Under the guidance of Dr. Yumi Shirai, I was able to discover the power of art as a means of expression and communication for individuals with disabilities.

The CIE has been approved for another year of funding from the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. With this new funding, the CIE will be able to maintain and expand the Center’s Native Initiatives. As the new year begins, we sat down with CIE Director Agnes Attakai to discuss the successes of the last year and plans for the future.

For this month’s edition of the Sonoran Center Staff Spotlight, we sat down with project aide and student worker Alanna Begay. We discussed the U of A’s unique accommodations, why she chose to work with the Sonoran Center, Native American Heritage Month, and more!