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For Immediate Release
https://vimeo.com/944557228

Center for Independent Living Welcomes Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda as New Executive Director Amid Crucial Times for Disability Rights

Berkeley, CA – May 8, 2024 – As the 2024 elections approach, the stakes have never been higher for the 61 million adults in the United States living with a disability. At this pivotal moment, the Center for Independent Living (CIL), a cornerstone of the disability rights movement since 1972, proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda as its new Executive Director. Dr. Pineda, a renowned global advocate and scholar, is set to lead CIL into a future where the hard-won victories for disability rights face both opportunities and challenges.

With threats looming over essential accessibility gains and civil rights, Dr. Pineda’s leadership is timely. His extensive experience in shaping key disability rights initiatives, including roles under former President Barack Obama and significant contributions to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, positions him uniquely to safeguard and advance these freedoms.

Joshua Halstead, Chair of the Board of CIL, shares his enthusiasm: "With Dr. Pineda at the helm, CIL is poised to tackle today's most pressing issues—protecting vital benefits, ensuring access and accommodation, and innovating community-based emergency preparedness. His visionary leadership is exactly what we need to steer us through these challenging times."

Joan Leon, an influential disability rights activist, echoed this sentiment, stating, "Victor has always been a trailblazer in our community. His leadership at CIL is crucial as we strive to amplify the voices of people with disabilities during this highly consequential election cycle and beyond."

Dr. Pineda’s strategy includes invigorating CIL’s mission with new vigor aimed at enhancing quality of life for persons with disabilities and addressing the growing needs of older adults transitioning into disability. His approach marries historical advocacy with cutting-edge strategies to foster deep community ties and build strategic partnerships across sectors.

Under Dr. Pineda’s guidance, CIL will host a series of town halls to sculpt a future where disability rights are synonymous with human rights, ensuring independence is within everyone's reach. Initiatives under his leadership will focus on harnessing emerging technologies and creating integrative solutions for mobility, housing, and employment, thus reinforcing CIL’s legacy as a vanguard of policy and research on a national and international stage.

Join us as we embark on this transformative journey with Dr. Pineda, reinforcing our commitment to a society where every individual is empowered and every voice is heard.

For more insights into Dr. Pineda’s vision and upcoming CIL initiatives, or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Nagisa Smalheiser
Media & Communications Manager
Center for Independent Living
Email: [email protected]

The CIL: Renewing Trust Through Inclusion (EN_HQ) Dr. Pineda is uniquely positioned to steer CIL toward a future where every individual is empowered, and every voice is heard. Dr. Pineda's vision integrates…

I’m happy to share that I’ve accepted an appointment as the Executive Director at Center for Independent Living, Inc.! I aim to strengthen the voice and impact of the disability community through collaborative leadership, strategic partnerships, and a deep commitment to our cause.

I look forward to making CIL a beacon of hope and a source of practical solutions for independence and equality. Leading the CIL marks a significant new chapter in my journey—an opportunity to blend my experiences with an enduring mission of empowerment and inclusion.

Reach out and join me as we go on this path together, with open hearts and a shared vision for a future where disability rights are human rights, and independence is accessible to all. Thank you for your warm welcome and support—it means the world to me.

https://thecil.org/press-release/center-for-independent-living-welcomes-dr-victor-santiago-pineda-as-new-executive-director-amid-crucial-times-for-disability-rights/

Center for Independent Living - Berkeley

I want to also thank all my staff at World Enabled for their incredible service. I look forward to new partnerships and leveraging my networks and relationships with UC Berkeley UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design Haas School of Business - UC Berkeley International House, UC Berkeley Ed Roberts Campus Hispanics in Philanthropy Ford Foundation Othering & Belonging Institute and many others.
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

Center for Independent Living Welcomes Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda as New Executive Director Amid Crucial Times for Disability Rights Berkeley, CA – May 8, 2024 – As the 2024 elections approach, the stakes have never been higher for the 61 million adults in the United States living with a disability. At this pivotal moment, the Center for Independent Living (CIL), a cornerstone of the disability rights movement since 1972,…

Know Your Rights: People with Disabilities Can Have a Supporter in the Hospital during COVID-19. Because of COVID-19 or the Coronavirus there are big changes in how hospitals and doctor’s offices work. They are not letting people visit patients. On June ...

EVERY SINGLE STEP OF THE PANDEMIC RESPONSE PLAN from the Federal Level was to intentionally divert COVID patients to nursing homes that had been "cleared out" of residents to make room. None of the residents were tested for COVID beforehand, this led to "intentional spread to the community" and led to INTENTIONAL SPREAD within the nursing homes themselves.

Nursing homes are euphemistically called "skilled nursing facilities", there is no skilled nursing happening in them, they are simply death's waiting rooms. They have been for decades. The "industry" changes the name to "homes" to make them sound more "home-like", kind of like the term "life-like" (thank you, Mike Hoover, for that great analogy). Shut them Down! Free Our People!

Examining the COVID-19 Nursing Home Crisis Ways and Means Committee Democrats U.S. House of Representatives 1102 Longworth House Office Building Washington D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3625 Fax: (202) 225-5680

The Disability Inclusion Fund Announces 15 Rapid Response Grants Totaling $210,000 Since the early days of the pandemic, people with disabilities, particularly people of color with disabilities, knew that COVID-19 was going to disproportionately affect their communities. While the pandemic has fundamentally changed daily life for everyone, the additional barriers for people with d

Remembering Justin Dart Jr on what would have been his 90th birthday today, June 22, 1930. . .watch his Farewell Speech narrated by the late Max Starkloff at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMloIy0oxTE

Read the Transcript:

Dearly Beloved:

Listen to the heart of this old soldier. As with all of us the time comes when body and mind are battered and weary. But I do not go quietly into the night. I do not give up struggling to be a responsible contributor to the sacred continuum of human life. I do not give up struggling to overcome my weakness, to conform my life—and that part of my life called death—to the great values of the human dream.

Death is not a tragedy. It is not an evil from which we must escape. Death is as natural as birth. Like childbirth, death is often a time of fear and pain, but also of profound beauty, of celebration of the mystery and majesty which is life pushing its horizons toward oneness with the truth of mot her universe. The days of dying carry a special responsibility. There is a great potential to communicate values in a uniquely powerful way—the person who dies demonstrating for civil rights. Let my final actions thunder of love, solidarity, protest—of empowerment.

I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world, a culture which has the obvious potential to create a golden age of science and democracy dedicated to maximizing the quality of life of every person, but which still squanders the majority of its human and physical capital on modern versions of primitive symbols of power and prestige. I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world which still incarcerates millions of humans with and without disabilities in barbaric institutions, backrooms and worse, windowless cells of oppressive perceptions, for the lack of the most elementary empowerment supports.

I call for solidarity among all who love justice , all who love life, to create a revolution that will empower every single human being to govern his or her life, to govern the society and to be fully productive of life quality for self and for all.I do so love all the patriots of this and every nation who have fought and sacrificed to bring us to the threshold of this beautiful human dream. I do so love America the beautiful and our wild, creative, beautiful people. I do so love you, my beautiful colleagues in the disability and civil rights movement.

My relationship with Yoshiko Dart includes, but also transcends, love as the word is normally defined. She is my wife, my partner, my mentor, my leader and my inspiration to believe that the human dream can live. She is the greatest human being I ever known.

Yoshiko, beloved colleagues, I am the luckiest man in the world to have been associated with you. Thanks to you, I die free. Thanks to you, I die in the joy of struggle. Thanks to you, I die in the beautiful belief that the revolution of empowerment will go on. I love you so much.
I’m with you always.

Lead on! Lead on! Justin Dart

More Videos of and by Justin Dart Jr.

Justin Dart Jr Memorial on C-Span
https://www.c-span.org/video/?171512-1/justin-dart-jr-memorial-service

Collection of Justin Dart Speeches on C-Span
https://www.c-span.org/person/?justindart

Justin Dart Jr. on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Justin+Dart+Jr

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