Project Description:
The goal of the WIND Women with Disabilities Initiative (WDI) is to facilitate the professional development of students and professionals in working with, representing, and researching issues facing women with disabilities. This is accomplished through WDI interns who administer many WDI outreach activities in local and regional communities. These activities include conducing original research, developing community display boards and a website, and administering a regional conference, film series, and other fundraising activities. WDI also offers an academic co-infusion unit and will be developing an upper-division course at the University of Wyoming.

In the 2002 - 2003 academic year, a film series was created by the WDI to begin the discussion around women with disabilities and their unique experiences. Based on the success of this event, the WDI raised the level of awareness by bringing the discussion about women with disabilities to a human.

The WDI, in 2005, scheduled a workshop and a panel discussion in March, which is Women's History Month and Disability Awareness Month, in order to bring the two areas together. Laura Hershey, a writer, poet and activist, from Denver, CO was contracted to come to Laramie and host a workshop and participate in a panel. The workshop, Disability and Justice: We're All in this Together, addressed many issues that women with disabilities and people with disabilities in general face, including media portrayals, activism and stereotypes. The panel, a part of the Shepard Symposium for Social Justice, was comprised of two women with disabilities and entitled Seeing the Invisible Woman: Experiences of Women with Disabilities. Each woman discussed the unique experiences that she has had as a woman with a disability and how her specific disability/disabilities have shaped those experiences. Additionally, each addressed the challenges they have encountered with health, invisibility, independence, and intimate relationships. Both of these events were well attended and enlightened many community members, students and University faculty and staff about issues specific to women with disabilities.