DISABILITY ACTIVIST; U.S. SPECIAL ADVISOR ON INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY RIGHTS; FOUNDER & CEO OF EMPOWERMENT THROUGH INTEGRATION (ETI)
Sara Minkara is an internationally known speaker and activist, advocating for the empowerment and authentic inclusion of people with disabilities. She was appointed by President Biden to be the U.S. Special Advisor on International Disability Rights–a role critical to ensuring that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of persons with disabilities around the world.
Sara is an expert and facilitator in the fields of disability, inclusion, intersectionality, women’s leadership, and social entrepreneurship. She speaks and facilitates workshops around the world that leverage her professional expertise and personal background as a Lebanese-American Muslim woman who lost her sight at age seven. Sara’s commitment to empowering others stems from her experience growing up as a child with a disability who was always made to feel supported and empowered by her parents, friends, family, and close community. Her parents never let her say the words “I cannot do this because I am blind”. However, when she would interact with society outside of her supportive environment, she faced a different narrative and felt pitied, and it was in these moments that she was made to feel that she may never amount to much because of her disability. Most children with disabilities around the world are marginalized, forgotten, and excluded in a way that robs them of their futures and robs society of their value. But, because she was empowered, she had the strength to show the world that she mattered, that she could contribute, and that if she wasn’t included, we would all lose out on her value.
It was these realizations that ignited a fire within Sara to dedicate her life not only to empowering other youth with disabilities to reach their full potential, but to disrupting and transforming the very narrative that created this society in which their value was ever questioned. During her undergraduate years at Wellesley College, Sara’s personal dedication formalized into the establishment of a nonprofit, Empowerment Through Integration (ETI), committed to disrupting the narrative around disability through empowering youth with disabilities individually—and advancing authentic inclusion globally. In 2009 with support from the Clinton Foundation, during the summer she was 19, Sara ran an inclusive summer camp for youth with and without disabilities in Lebanon. She then founded ETI in 2011 and expanded its programs and mission while earning her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and in the years since.
Sara has become a leading voice in the field of disability inclusion and empowerment, developing a holistic approach to affect change on individual, institutional, and global levels. One tool Sara utilizes is “In the Dark,” a program she designed based on her experiences during her Masters at Harvard Kennedy School when she identified the need for groups of people to connect outside of their biases, assumptions, and “isms” and without relying on the visual cues that make up so much of how we judge one another. “In the Dark” uses blindfolds to remove visual cues and labels, accessing the power behind blindness to facilitate transformative experiences (*not* to simulate blindness).
Through public engagements, advocacy, speaking, and facilitated training sessions that often utilize her “In the Dark” method, Sara and the ETI team travel the world to disrupt the prevailing disempowering narrative of disability and advance a new, value-based narrative that will lead to true integration and inclusion for all. Sara has transformed the mindsets of thousands of participants in corporate, academic, government, and nonprofit settings, customizing each opportunity to meet every client’s unique diversity and inclusion challenges and goals.
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Estimates show that there are 1 billion people in the world with a disability, that is 1/7 of the world's population. And yet, this ratio doesn't come close to being represented in any of our spaces. Sara will make the case for the authentic inclusion of the one billion people with disabilities in the world by weaving together her own lived experiences as a blind, Lebanese-American, Muslim woman, and the work of her organization, Empowerment Through Integration (ETI). Sara approaches the inclusion of people with disabilities from a value-based lens, and her mantra that “the inclusion of all is a value for all.” Sara is on a journey to engage every stakeholder in society, and invites every one of us to engage in breaking the cycle of disempowerment, moving from a charity perspective, to human rights, and finally the value-based approach to inclusion.
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Despite much improvement, a lack of gender diversity in leadership is still a challenge that we need to tackle across the world. Sara’s goal and dream is to create more spaces for women to lead and succeed. She will highlight that having women in leadership, especially women of minorities, has a positive impact on the culture and productivity in organizations of all industries, improving their diversity, innovation, growth, and more. Sara will empower others to follow in her footsteps by sharing her own perspective and lessons as a female leader and her experiences leading a diverse team of women with disabilities.
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Sara is not your stereotypical social enterprise leader: she is a young, blind, Muslim woman. As a leader with these diverse identities, she has had to overcome many biases, but what she realized is that being a woman from a minority and with a disability actually gave her an edge and had their own unique advantages. She’ll share these lessons, and how we can all access the power behind our identities to become a stronger leader, discussing topics from starting and growing an enterprise, to founder’s dilemma, evolving your business plans, and more.
Twitter: @sarasminkara | @ETIVision
Instagram: @sarasminkara