Sharing Our Stories: A Place in the Sun: where audacious Women with disAbilities meet to share our stories. What it was like, what happened, and what it's like today: that's what we aim to share.

Being a Woman with disAbility makes us neither a saint nor a martyr, but it does necessarily challenge us to be adaptable. Society was not initially constructed to include those of us who are not flawlessly able. It has been our duty to ourselves to find the back doors and shaded windows of opportunity, scaling walls of resistance, all just to reach or build a barrier-free place where the sun shines equally on us all.

We are here to tell our stories of the grand expedition from exclusion to inclusion: to shine a light on those doors, open those windows wider, and disassemble those walls.

Since the most primitive campfires and throughout history, stories have helped teach, influence, and bind people together. Stories have fostered the understanding -- of self, of others, and of life -- which is vital to progress. Such understanding is sorely needed today, as we, Women with disAbilities, struggle to live and work and progress toward common goals.

The DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN) places great emphasis on sharing our stories; we learn and grow from each others' experiences.

This is a restricted membership list -- new members are requested to respond to 3 specific questions and agree to adhere to our confidentiality policy listed at http://dawn.thot.net/sos/confidentiality.html

Members who post to this list retain their copyright and do not grant license to others to forward any message posted here, off the list, unless otherwise indicated in the post. Members grant the list manager permission to maintain an archive of list messages, accessible to subscribed members only. Other use of e-mail to this list requires the permission of individual writers.