WEI’s Impact Stories Project: Magda Szarota
Magda Szarota is an award-winning disability and human rights advocate, researcher, NGO executive and founding member of Article 6, a Polish feminist disability rights collective. Her work as a pioneer in the post-socialist women with disabilities movement is inspired by family and community, many of whom are also activists. In 2003, during the European Year of People with Disabilities as a human rights fellow, she was struck by the lack of disability representation in her fellowship program and across human rights advocacy, more generally. It came as such a surprise to her as a “newly” disabled person, she says, and was a turning point that initiated a career in advocacy and activism.
Being invited to WEI’s global convening of women with disability advocates in 2016 in Geneva was another important moment in her life and career. It was there that Magda learned more about hands-on UN advocacy from disability leaders, Stephanie Ortoleva and Suzannah Phillips of Women Enabled International (WEI). Knowing about WEI and witnessing it serve as, what she calls, a catalyst for sense-making processes translated into concrete actions, she saw an opportunity for partnership.
What followed was many meaningful collaborations like co-leading a WEI sponsored webinar about abortion and disability; co-writing an op-ed for Ms. Magazine with Suzannah; and teaming up with Amanda McRae on shadow reporting at the Geneva UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Magda credits WEI with bringing attention to the disproportionate discrimination of women and gender marginalized people with disabilities and, in particular, teaching her how to effectively and persuasively apply this concept in her work as a consultant on national policy proposals that often overlooked women with disabilities.
In Magda’s view, solidarity and collaboration across human rights organizations and addressing movement burnout among activists and advocates are of equal importance.
The events of the last year and a half have hindered global human rights work in many ways from the pandemic to broad social movement backlash. In Magda’s view, solidarity and collaboration across human rights organizations and addressing movement burnout among activists and advocates are of equal importance. Despite challenges, there is still much to be optimistic about according to Magda. Most notably, the mass shift to online communication has made information exchange, movement building, and collective action more accessible especially to people with disabilities. Although not perfect, the shift has certainly brought more visibility to intersectional issues facing women and gender marginalized people with disabilities and to the contributions they make to global human rights movements.
Through her own hard work and the support of organizations like WEI, Magda has organized activist communities, coordinated direct action campaigns, and created educational tools for and about women with disabilities. With Humanity in Action Poland, she helped create the first human rights network of young disabled activists and allies in Poland; with Association of Women with Disabilities she developed the first Polish e-platform that addressed discrimination of women with disabilities; and with Article 6 she was involved in organizing the first ever Polish convention for women with disabilities which was supported by the Fundusz Feministyczny [Feminist Fund] and received an honorary patronage of the Polish Ombudsman, professor Adam Bodnar. She celebrates these successes and credits the support and encouragement of Women Enabled International. When asked about her experience working with WEI, Magda cites her appreciation for its flexibility, collaborative spirit, and dedication to amplifying the voices and experience of women and gender marginalized people with disabilities. She considers the WEI a key human rights leader not only for its advocacy work but for its strong record building and sustaining coalitions across interests, from global NGO’s to local grass-roots collectives.
You can learn more about Magda Szarota [she/her] and her work on Twitter @Magda_Szarota; Humanity in Action Poland; FAR; and Article 6 Collective.
