My name is William Safari, I am so excited to share a little bit more about myself.
I am a New Mainer who immigrated from Africa to Maine in September 2022. I hold a Master’s Degree in Special Needs and Inclusive Education and my professional background is as a project manager with a focus on advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.
When I first arrived in Maine, I began volunteering with Hope Acts as a language translator. I then completed a three month training course on independent living at the Iris Network, which helped me to develop strong networking skills and first introduced me to Disability Rights Maine.
For the past six months, I’ve worked at DRM as the Project Coordinator for a very important project focused on outreach and assessment of disability-related needs within Maine’s immigrant community. I am so happy to be working on this project, which has already achieved important results.
I am excited to start the next phase of this project, where we expect to:
- Build a coalition and network of immigrants with disabilities in Maine through ongoing outreach, which will then focus on improving access to information and strengthening self-advocacy.
- Develop and provide new trainings for New Americans/Mainers and organizations serving immigrants about disability rights and DRM’s services.
- Continue to strengthen DRM’s internal capacity to bridge cultural gaps and increase awareness of disability related issues within immigrant communities.
- Develop and review existing agency material for language and cultural accessibility.
This project is exciting to me as a person with a disability who moved to Maine and struggled to learn about all the resources that might be available to me. This experience was not unique for me, as demonstrated through my contact with many other disabled immigrants during the first phase of this project.
Stay tuned for more!