About

About the Disability Justice Project

What is the Disability Justice Project?

The Disability Justice Project (DJP) trains disabled human rights defenders in documentary storytelling and is the first media platform dedicated to disability rights in global majority nations. Sending camera kits across continents, we work with disability activists and their affiliated organizations to develop cohesive messaging to challenge stereotypes about disability and drive systemic change. An award-winning project of the Center for Independent Documentary (CID), the DJP is a leader in accessible media, incorporating captions, audio descriptions, and interactive transcripts into our videos and offering plain-language instructions on using this site and its accessibility settings. Our activists are leading the way in inclusive filmmaking, demonstrating that with appropriate accommodations, people with a range of disabilities can actively engage in media production. Our films have screened and placed in festivals around the world.

DJP Fellows Harness iPhone Technology to Spotlight Climate Crisis in the Pacific. Watch versions with audio descriptions and SLI.

Partners

United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

Honors and Screenings

2025

Rising Tides, Raising Voices, the film we co-produced with our Pacific Fellows on the impact of climate change on Indigenous Pacific Islanders with disabilities, is an official selection in the Global Health Film Days festival sponsored by the University of Copenhagen’s School of Global Health.
Rising Tides, Raising Voices has been selected to screen at the disABILITY Film Festival Leuven Short Film Competition in Leuven, Belgium.
‘I Feel Like an Outsider’, a short film by DJP Fellow Kinanty Andini about limited mental health care and support for Indonesians with psychosocial disabilities, is an official selection in the Mental Health Warrior Film Festival.

2024

Rising Tides, Raising Voices won Best International Film at The Together! 2024 Disability Film Festival, organized by the UK Disabled People’s Council.
Rising Tides, Raising Voices received Special Mention at the A&E, Accessibility and Environment Film Festival, was a finalist in the Cinema Touching Disability Festival, and was an Official Selection in the Art Without Limit International and Focus on Ability festivals.
On International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Rising Tides, Raising Voices was featured at UNESCO’s inaugural Festival of Short Films on Disability Inclusion in Paris. It was also part of a panel discussion and special screening hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome.
We received the Mental Health Hero Award at This Is My Brave Australia (TIMBA)’s 7th International Mental Health Film Festival. Our films, Breaking Chains by DJP Fellow Sanjaya Raj Neupane and ‘I Feel Like an Outsider’ by DJP Fellow Kinanty Andini, were recognized for promoting inclusion and empowerment by highlighting the intersection of mental health and disability justice.
Rising Tides, Raising Voices was endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development as a Decade Activity.

2023

We were a finalist in the Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA) in the Production Companies category, selected from entries from 27 countries. The 12th annual SIMA Awards were supported by the International Documentary Association, Doc Society, Firelight Media, and other national and international documentary and social change organizations.
We won two gold Anthem Awards honoring mission-driven journalism. From nearly 2000 entries across 43 countries, our work was featured along with Mother Jones, ITVS, and Human Rights Watch. Judges included Tarana Burke, Ashley Judd, and The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson.
We were nominated for a Webby Award in the Websites and Mobile Sites – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category. We were singled out as one of the five best sites in the world in this category, making us among the top 12% of the nearly 14,000 projects entered.
We were a finalist in the On The Rise: 0-4 Years in Business category and an honorable mention in the Media & Entertainment category in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards.

What are people saying about us?

BBC Access All: From fresh-water wells flooded by salty seawater to avoiding inaccessible emergency shelters, we hear from [DJP Fellows] Ari in Samoa and Melvina in the Solomon Islands about the impact climate change is having on their very exposed corner of the world. It comes as COP28, the UN summit which convenes annually to try and solve the climate crisis – draws to a close in Dubai.

Reframing Disability: Every Small Step Towards Accessibility Counts: Since the beginning of the year, I have worked for DJP as the community engagement coordinator of a growing group of alumni fellows and journalists covering disability globally, and recently, as an instructor of rights-based journalism to a cohort of disability-rights activists from Nepal. I’ve witnessed firsthand the effort that goes into making the programme accessible for fellows from varied cultural backgrounds and abilities, who speak different languages.

Cultural Survival: How the Disability Justice Project has resourced Indigenous storytellers with disabilities to frame their own agenda and solutions: Ableism is deeply entrenched in the dominant narrative, which is exclusionary and dehumanizing. Storytelling about persons with disabilities is often paternalistic and harmful, perpetuating dangerous stereotypes. Think inspiration exploitation, a definite no-no. Changing this ableist narrative is essential in philanthropy, too.

Anthem Awards: How the Disability Justice Project is taking an intersectional approach to dismantling systems of ableism: The Disability Justice Project (DJP) pairs disabled journalists in the Global South, in the nascent stages of their careers, with mentors and professional journalists. The program’s goal is to push the global disability justice movement to the forefront of storytelling, while training fellows on rights-based reporting.

Northeastern Global News: How the Disability Justice Project is working to make filmmaking more accessible: “The whole goal of the Disability Justice Project is to make our media—and the media production process itself—more accessible,” [DJP Founding Executive Director Jody] Santos says. “This is a huge step in that direction.”

Disability Rights Fund: Meet Two Disability Justice Project Fellows Modeling Inclusive Storytelling: Ableist storytelling is a direct contradiction to the popular disability rights movement’s slogan, “Nothing About Us Without Us.” It is critical that persons with disabilities are front and center in any stories that are told about them and are included in policy decisions made about them. … Recognizing the need for disability-inclusive storytelling, the Disability Justice Project … was created to mentor and train persons with disabilities to “take back the narrative” as storytellers.

What is the Disability Justice Project Fellowship?

Five fellows from organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) in the Global South participate in a 14-week workshop on digital storytelling and receive a stipend and a certificate of completion at the end of the course. Trainings are usually virtual over Zoom, and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) and International Sign are provided. Storytelling kits, including video cameras, tripods, and mics, are shipped to participating fellows and are the property of the affiliated OPD.

Who can apply to DJP?

Accessibility statement

The Disability Justice Project is committed to providing an accessible and inclusive experience that functions for the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability.

We strive to conform to level AA compliance for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, which outlines how to make web content easier to use for persons with disabilities. The code powering this site is standards-compliant HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Any person using a past, present, or future browser that honors these standards should be capable of navigating this site.

In addition to being tested on modern browsers, this site has been checked to make sure it’s compatible with:

Recent versions of popular screen readers
Operating system screen magnifiers
Speech recognition software
Operating system speech packages

We have tried to improve the accessibility of our website for users with disabilities by:

Using time-tested, stable, and interoperable technology based on open standards to help ensure our content can be accessed by the widest range of devices as possible
Running automated and manual checks to test for accessibility issues
Supporting magnified and zoomed displays, as well as custom typefaces and themes potentially set by someone in their browser
Maintaining a color palette with high contrast ratios values to keep content legible
Providing keyboard-accessible navigation
Providing skip-to-content links at the top of the page

The Disability Justice Project’s accessibility menu can be enabled by clicking on the accessibility menu icon that appears in the right corner of every page. To learn more about how to use our accessibility settings, watch our videos in Able Player, use the search function, and more, visit our How to use this site page.

If you are experiencing difficulty with any content on the site or if you would like to request accessibility-related assistance, report any accessibility problems, or request any information in alternative formats, please email jsantos@disabilityjusticeproject.org.

Our team

Board of Advisors

Staff

Jody Santos Founding Executive Director/Editor-in-Chief

A human rights filmmaker, Jody Santos (she/her) has traveled to over 30 countries across five continents, documenting everything from the trafficking of girls in Nepal to the widespread and often abusive practice of institutionalizing children with disabilities in the U.S. and other countries. Her documentaries have aired on public television and networks like the Discovery Channel, and her reporting has been featured on New England Public Radio and in publications such as Mad in America. Across all platforms, Santos focuses on telling stories that are often overlooked or go unreported.

Santos is the recipient of American Women in Radio & Television’s Gracie Allen Award, and she was nominated for an Emmy for a special report on black-market guns airing on NBC Boston. Her documentary, Rising Tides, Raising Voices, has screened at festivals worldwide, earning accolades such as Best International Film at The Together! 2024 Disability Film Festival organized by the UK Disabled People’s Council. In 2024, the film was featured on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at UNESCO’s inaugural Festival of Short Films on Disability Inclusion in Paris and at a screening hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome.

Santos is an associate teaching professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism. She is the author of Daring to Feel: Violence, the News Media, and Their Emotions published by Rowman & Littlefield’s Lexington Books.

Priti Salian Instructor/Community Engagement Director

Priti Salian is a Bengaluru-based independent journalist and has reported from India, Germany, and Uganda on global health, human rights, social justice, development, and culture. More specifically, she has covered issues of disability, gender, education, health care, and aging. Her work has appeared across seven countries in the Guardian, the BBC, National Geographic, NBC News, Public Radio International, Devex, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, CityLab, The Christian Science Monitor, South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, and The National, among others.

In 2019, Salian was a fellow of Robert Bosch Foundation in Germany, and in 2022 she traveled to Oxford on a fellowship with Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism where she conducted research on disability inclusion in Indian newsrooms. Her paper “A 9-step plan for “curb-cutting” disability access in Indian news and newsrooms” is a result of the study.

She is a TEDx speaker and a contributor to the ethical travel anthology Tread Brightly.

Upakar Pandey Partnership Development and Program Support Specialist

With over eight years of experience in strategic partnerships, good governance, youth leadership, and media literacy, Upakar Pandey focuses on developing meaningful collaborations that contribute to impactful initiatives. Also a filmmaker and screenwriter, he has contributed to various projects at the Disability Justice Project, such as scripting Climate Strain, a film that follows an autistic man from Delhi as he grapples with severe air pollution and extreme heat. Pandey represented Nepal at the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2022 and participated as Nepal’s representative in the Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI) in New Media at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2016. He is a three-time recipient of the ERASMUS+ Mobility Grant from the European Union and holds a Master of Arts in Sociology from Purwanchal University.

Grace Rountree Development Associate

Grace Rountree (she/they) is a community organizer, human rights advocate, and visual artist. Grace’s background as a paralegal specializing in humanitarian immigration law informs her commitment to building transnational solidarity and fighting for progressive change at the intersection of disability justice and migrant rights issues. They are passionate about centering accessibility in social movement spaces and are experienced in organizing around human rights issues, particularly related to U.S. imperialism in the Global South. As audience engagement coordinator with the Disability Justice Project, she will create content and develop strategy across social media platforms.

Annika Sunkara Social Media Coordinator

Annika Sunkara is a second-year journalism major at Northeastern University. She specializes in social media and vertical video and has served as audiovisual editor and social media editor at The Huntington News, Northeastern’s independent student newspaper. At the Disability Justice Project, she is eager to connect with disability advocates around the world and amplify their journalism through the DJP’s platforms.

Francine Uwayisaba smiles at the camera.

Francine Uwayisaba Contributing Writer

Francine Uwayisaba is a field officer at Rwanda Union of Little People (RULP) and is in charge of the organization’s communications. She writes grants, manages RULP’s social media, and composes articles and weekly updates for the website. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and communication from the University of Rwanda and has been a freelance contributor to the Disability Justice Project since the fall of 2022. She is trained in basic sign language; disability inclusion in HIV interventions; disability, sexuality, and rights; and gender balancing. She also works as an actor in dubbing movies from international languages to Kinyarwanda.

Sakdiyah Ma’ruf Interpreter

Sakdiyah Ma’ruf is Indonesia’s first Muslim female stand-up comic. Her comedy promotes dialogue, peace, and gender equality. She has performed in Indonesia, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Mesir. Ma’ruf’s comedic work has been featured in Comedy Jihad, Born A Women, etc., Indonesia Seharusnya Rumah, Bersama, and other shows. She is the co-founder and main facilitator of “Our Voice for Change,” a women and youth initiative and comedy workshop promoting social change through comedy.

Ma’ruf is also a certified conference interpreter and translator who has 12 years of experience. Her translation works pertain to but are not limited to women’s rights, children and youth’s rights, disability rights, public health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, politics and democracy, disaster, emergency, environmental issues, and humanitarian issues. Ma’ruf is fluent in providing simultaneous, consecutive, and/or whispering interpreting services, including RSI (Remote Simultaneous Interpreting) at conferences, workshops, FGDs, press conferences, and webinars. Moreover, she has experience with translating documents, legal documents, and books.

Dan Zedek Designer

Dan Zedek heads a design studio specializing in content-driven design and strategy. As creative director of The Boston Globe and BostonGlobe.com, he led the print and digital design, news development, data visualization, and infographics teams, building an award-winning visual brand. The Society for News Design named BostonGlobe.com “The World’s Best Designed News Site” at launch. Prior to the Globe, he was a designer or art director at numerous local and national publications, including Natural Health, Seattle Weekly, The Dallas Observer, Parenting, Guitar World, and the Village Voice. Zedek is a professor of the practice at the Northeastern University School of Journalism where he leads master’s degree studios in Media Innovation.

Eric Bailey looks left of camera and smiles.

Eric Bailey Developer

Eric helped code this website. He’s an inclusive design advocate, writer, developer, and speaker. He helps maintain The A11Y Project, a community-driven effort to make digital accessibility easier. If you encountered an access barrier while using this site, please let him know.