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Centering Empathy: Stories from Coloradans with Diverse Lived Experiences
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Shana's Story
Shana is a mother of two boys, a wife, and an advocate for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Shana has a bachelor’s in psychology and worked with and alongside families for over 12 years. Additionally, Shana has lived in rural communities in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado and saw firsthand what the lack of resources and technology can do to individuals and their families who are low-income and who need supportive services.
Shana works for Mosaic, a non-profit that empowers people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live independently with 24-hour support. She has been with the agency for 6 years, working as a supervisor over host homes and currently as the Quality Coordinator.
As a parent with a son who has intellectual disabilities and a son who identifies as they/them, Shana has seen how technology can assist them and also exclude them, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shana has struggled with hearing and recently learned she has significant hearing loss. She is learning how to utilize hearing aids for the first time and the tools and resources to succeed at work, at home, and in the community and has begun learning ASL.
Through Shana’s experiences in her own life and helping others, she is passionate about ensuring that all people have what they need to achieve their goals and dreams and live the best life possible. She is also passionate about being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Reem's Story
Reem has been in the United States for 14 years. Reem became interested in the disability and accessibility services fields when she arrived in the United States (US). In Iraq, where Reem is originally from, and as a person who is totally blind, she didn’t have access to reading materials when she was a young student, and her mother used to record all the books for her.
After arriving in the US, she started her journey by going to the Colorado Center for the Blind where she learned how to use assistive technology. She was astonished when she started going to college because that was the first time she found out there was a disability services office. Receiving support services was the key for her to be successful, and she started thinking about ways to provide access to services for students who have disabilities.
Reem has been working at the Community College of Aurora for six years as a disability coordinator. She got promoted as an assistant director for the Office of Disability and Equity last year. Her role is to provide academic accommodations to students with disabilities. Two years ago, Reem accepted a part-time job as a senior accessibility tester at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her main role is testing different websites to ensure that they are fully accessible and usable by all individuals and providing recommendations on how to make websites fully accessible. Reem received her degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado Denver and her MS in Disability Services in Higher Education at CUNY School of Professional Studies. Reem’s hobbies are reading, exercising, and playing music.
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