Bird-watchers across the country are part of the 124th National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count between now and early January.

One group helps people with disabilities participate in the count, and in birding activities year-round.

Virginia Rose, founder and president of Birdability, said she went "birding" from a wheelchair for 20 years and saw almost no other people with visible disabilities. With support from the National Audubon Society, an interactive map now identifies accessible birding spots, including 13 in Nebraska.

Rose pointed out Audubon turned her list of accessibility features into a survey, and the results were used to crowdsource the first Birdability map.

"And within maybe a year-and-a-half, there were over 1,000 sites in the U.S.," Rose explained. "And within three years, there were 15 countries included."

Rose noted there are around 50 Birdability "captains" across the country. In addition to identifying accessible parks to add, or "pin" to the map, they lead regular outings for people with disabilities.

An accessible Christmas Bird Count will be held tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Oak Lake in Lincoln, one of several Christmas Bird Counts in Nebraska between now and Jan. 5.

Cassandra Dean, Nebraska Birdability captain, said Nebraska Game and Parks helps them promote accessible birding locations through its Go Bird Nebraska website.

"I pin the sites on the Birdability map, tell Nebraska Game and Parks and then, they go into their webpage and link the Birdability map to their webpage," Dean outlined. "If someone goes onto their webpage, and not normally the Birdability map, they're still taken over to the Birdability map."

Dean emphasized several features affect accessibility, including the presence of ramps and railings, as well as the length and slope of the trail and the type of surface.

"Indian Cave State Park ended up building a new trail for my accessible bird outing event, because their trails have too much of a slope," Dean recounted.

Dean added people can contribute to the Birdability map by indicating the accessibility features of parks they visit which are not yet "pinned."

Rose stressed better accessibility benefits large numbers of people.

"We are not talking only about disabled people; we are talking about every single person who ages," Rose said.


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Several hundred hikers are expected to climb to a summit of over 14,000 feet for this year's Pikes Peak Challenge in Colorado Springs, an annual event that supports people whose lives have been impacted by brain injury.

Zach Hudson, development director with the Brain Injury Alliance of Colorado, said participants can choose a summit that fits their skill level. Some will hike up halfway to Barr Camp, and others will walk several miles around Manitou Springs.

"All of the money raised goes toward supporting Coloradans and their loved ones, families, friends and professionals who are living with brain injury and have been affected by brain injury in some way," Hudson said.

The challenge started nearly 40 years ago as a "Walk Through the Clouds" when six hikers made it to the summit of Pikes Peak. Hudson said many brain injury survivors and their families participate to defy the odds and accomplish something they've been told they'd never do.

The all-ages event is set for Saturday, Sept. 7, and registration is now open at 'pikespeakchallenge.com.'

There are over 500,000 Coloradans living with a brain injury, and Hudson explained the challenge helps people across the state access free services. The Brain Injury Alliance of Colorado offers art classes, music therapy, resource navigation and support groups. It also organizes adaptive skiing and snowboarding in the winter, and hiking, fishing and other activities in the summer.

"Our mission is to make sure that all people with a brain injury are able to thrive in their communities and get connected to the resources that they need," he continued.

The alliance has also started offering permanent supportive housing in Denver to address the link between brain injury and homelessness. Hudson said the Pikes Peak Challenge is the organization's largest annual fundraiser.

"And then afterwards, the party in the park is a great way to come together with the community, meet other people, mingle with participants, have a nice meal, enjoy some music and a nice beautiful day in the park," he explained.


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By Marianne Dhenin for Yes! Magazine.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for Georgia News Connection reporting for the YES! Media/Public News Service Collaboration

When then-Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in April 2021 that a new law enforcement training complex would be built in the Weelaunee Forest, or South River Forest, in Dekalb County, near Atlanta, Georgia, a diverse coalition of organizers, activists, and other community members formed to oppose the project under the "Stop Cop City" banner. For Atlanta-based disability justice activists who are part of the coalition, the movement to stop Cop City is a disability justice issue.

"It is critical for us to bring a disability perspective when we talk about Cop City," says Atlanta-based Dom Kelly, co-founder of the nonprofit New Disabled South (NDS), "because the construction of this facility will disproportionately harm disabled people."

Almost three years after Bottoms' announcement, Cop City, officially titled the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, is under construction on an 85-acre plot of forested land owned by the City of Atlanta in DeKalb County. If completed, the campus will be the nation's largest police training complex, equipped with military-grade facilities and a mock city for urban police training.

Many who have mobilized against the project have highlighted the adverse environmental effects of clearing dozens of acres of the South River Forest to make way for the development. Indigenous-led groups also oppose the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest and its wildlife habitat.

Meanwhile, racial justice groups foreground the fact that police violence disproportionately harms communities of color, and abolitionist organizations reject any expansion of policing and incarceration. They argue that Cop City would further militarize the police force. "Police here have already responded to protests with militarized tactics, chemical weapons, and domestic terrorism charges," Atlanta organizer Micah Herskind told The New York Times last year. "Cop City would only further provide police with training and equipment to suppress dissent and terrorize Black and working-class communities."

According to disabled organizers, each of these issues affects their community in unique ways. The framework of disability justice helps reveal these intersections.

"Destroying any portion of that forest is going to have an impact on our ability to fight climate change, and then that will disproportionately impact the disabled community," says Kelly. Disabled folks are at greater risk of being negatively affected by climate change, including experiencing worsening health conditions due to changing weather or being left behind during climate-change-related disasters.

Many disabled people also live on fixed incomes, making it nearly impossible for them to afford equipment to help navigate the effects of climate change, like air conditioners to survive a heatwave or backup generators to get through a blackout.

Disabled people are also especially vulnerable to police violence and are overrepresented in the nation's incarcerated population. "Disabled people, especially disabled people of color, are disproportionately harmed by police and the carceral system," says Kelly.

NDS, which works across the southern United States, partnered with Data for Progress on a recent voter survey in six Southern states including Georgia, examining sentiments on law enforcement encounters for disabled people in the region. The survey respondents agreed that disabled people experience discrimination during law enforcement encounters due to their disabilities.

Among Black and disabled respondents, rates of agreement were higher than among White and non-disabled respondents, pointing to the important difference between lived experience and outside perception of law enforcement encounters. Over 50 percent of Black survey respondents said they believe disabled people experience discrimination when interacting with law enforcement. About 34 percent of White respondents agreed that disabled people face discrimination in these encounters. More than 46 percent of all disabled respondents and about 37 percent of all non-disabled respondents agreed that disabled people experience discrimination when interacting with law enforcement.

Further, according to data from the Survey of Prison Inmates, 66% of people incarcerated in the U.S. report having a disability. Studies have also found that as many as half of those killed by police nationwide are disabled.

Black people are already three times more likely than white people to be killed during a police encounter-disabled or not. Additionally, they are more likely to be disabled and less likely to have access to needed health care.

Often, police encounters with disabled people become violent because officers make assumptions about so-called normal behavior. If an individual does not speak, move, or behave as an officer expects or demands, rather than considering that they might be disabled, the officer may assume noncompliance and react with force.

"A lot of the Black men that Atlanta police or [those from] other police departments in the metro area have killed were disabled," says Susi Durán, chair of the Atlanta chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, another group actively organizing against Cop City.

In 2015, police in Chamblee, Georgia, just northeast of Atlanta, shot and killed Anthony Hill, a Black man with bipolar disorder who was experiencing a mental health crisis. In 2021, in a similar incident, a DeKalb County officer killed Matthew Zadok Williams. His family later told reporters he was having a mental health crisis, and they wished the police would have gotten him help.

Experts suggest that a training facility such as Cop City would worsen the criminalization of disabled people rather than lessen the issue. Studies show that training programs, even those intended to reduce implicit biases against marginalized groups, do not improve police interactions with those communities. Research also shows that the increasing militarization of the police disproportionately threatens minority groups.

Kiana Jackson, Research and Coalition Organizing Manager at NDS and a co-author of the recent NDS and Data for Progress survey, says people have been connecting the dots between the discrimination they've seen in their communities and police militarization. "It is important for disabled people to get out on the forefront of these issues and say, 'Hey, we are victims of this. We are the ones being killed,'" she says.

Many disabled folks in Atlanta and DeKalb County have been doing just that as an outspoken contingent of the Stop Cop City movement. When the Atlanta City Council scheduled a vote on an ordinance for funding Cop City at a council meeting in June 2023, hundreds of community members showed up to make their voices heard at a public comment session that lasted 14 hours.

"Disabled people are a part of the Atlanta community," said Barry Lee, an Atlanta-based disabled artist who spoke at the meeting. Lee then urged the council to "allocate the proposed funds toward creating better accessibility for the city of Atlanta."

The city consistently ranks low for quality of life for its disabled residents, partly because of its crumbling sidewalks, inaccessible transportation, and lack of health care facilities. "There are parts of the city where it is difficult to walk on some sidewalks," says Durán. "Plus, we lost our Level I trauma center when Atlanta Medical Center closed down [in 2022]."

When Georgia-based respondents to the recent NDS and Data for Progress survey were asked whether their state had adequate resources, such as medical or mental health resources for disabled people when interacting with law enforcement, only 31 percent said they thought so.

People are frustrated, Durán says, because rather than the Atlanta City Council allocating funding for repairing infrastructure or shoring up the city's health care, "They're spending it on policing." Slogans like "Defund the Police" and "Care, Not Cops," heard at Stop Copy City protests capture this sentiment. Like Lee, many others who spoke at the public comment session also called on the City of Atlanta to allocate funding to infrastructure, housing, or youth programs rather than policing.

Despite the mass opposition at its meeting last June, the Atlanta City Council voted to approve $31 million in funding for the construction of Cop City.

When the Stop Cop City movement launched its next front, disabled organizers were again at the fore. The "Vote to Stop Cop City" referendum campaign began soon after that council meeting, aiming to get a vote on Cop City's construction on an upcoming ballot. One of its two fiscal sponsors was New Disabled South Rising (NDRS), NDS's political arm.

Kelly says backing the referendum campaign "aligned with the work [NDS was] already doing" as part of the organization's mission to support efforts decriminalizing disability and ensuring disabled people have access to the democratic process.

As fiscal sponsor on the campaign, NDS worked behind the scenes processing and disbursing contributions. Kelly says the organization also helped ensure that communications and canvassing were inclusive of disabled Atlantans.

Between its launch in June and September 11, 2023, the referendum campaign collected and submitted 116,000 signatures from Atlanta residents. That number is well over the threshold needed to get Cop City on the ballot. But the City of Atlanta has questioned it and made a series of attempts to disrupt the validation process, which Stop Cop City organizers claim are stalling tactics undermining Atlantans' right to vote on the issue.

As the referendum petitions move through a contested verification process and direct action to stop Cop City's construction continues, disabled organizers say they're committed to continuing their work. "If we want to see collective liberation in our lifetimes, we have to fight back against the further militarization of police and destruction of our already precious forest environment to ensure that future generations have a planet to live on and won't be murdered by police," says Kelly. "Cop City is one piece of that struggle."


Marianne Dhenin wrote this article for YES! Magazine.


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As the country observes Autism Acceptance Month, Nebraska families raising a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder are among those learning they will be receiving financial assistance.

The Family Support Waiver is based on passage of a 2022 bill and will provide up to $10,000 annually for 850 Nebraska families with a child with a developmental or intellectual disability, and the child will also receive Medicaid coverage.

Leslie Bishop Hartung, president and CEO of the Autism Center of Nebraska, said many Nebraska families raising children with a variety of developmental disabilities struggle to afford their child's care needs.

"It's not a lot of money but it might be just enough for families to bridge those gaps when they really need support, especially over the summer break when there's no school for children," Bishop Hartung pointed out. "And also, specific services that might be a real financial burden."

Families can use the waiver funds for services such as respite care, family caregiver training, home modifications and assistive technologies. Depending on the child's limitations and level of support needed, families can face considerable costs meeting the needs of a child with a developmental or intellectual disability.

Jennifer Clark, deputy director of the Developmental Disability Division for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said they are notifying around 150 families per month between now and August they will be receiving the Family Support Waiver. The notices are prioritized according to the family's need. Clark says this was determined by their responses to a survey DHHS sent to families with a child on the developmental disabilities waiting list.

Receiving first priority are families in crisis.

"Where the child tends to self-harm or harm others, so whether they're harming their siblings or their family members," Clark outlined. "The second priority is children with disabilities who are at risk for placement in juvenile detention centers or other out-of-home placements."

Clark added families in which the grandparent is the primary caregiver are given third priority, followed by families with more than one child with a disability living at home. Remaining families are prioritized based on the date they applied to the developmental disabilities waiting list.

Jordan Squiers, board president of The Arc of Buffalo County, said they are hopeful the waiver will help fill gaps in services, especially for older youths who do not become eligible for more inclusive services until they turn 21.

"They might be able to get additional help in their home; they might be able to hire somebody to take somebody out into the community more often," Squiers explained. "Kids that age do get the benefit of the schools but obviously we know there's lots of hours in the day outside of that; weekends, summers."

The Family Support Waiver is one of three Home and Community-Based Services Medicaid Waivers available in Nebraska.