An all-new online platform aiming to connect LGBTQ+ people living with disabilities, called the Our Voices Our Lives Our Way (OVOLOW) project, was recently unveiled by its developers LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (LHA) and the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA). 

The online platform, funded by Australia’s Department of Social Services, aims to “build the individual and collective capacity of LGBTQIA+ people with disability to strengthen existing knowledge, skills and confidence to participate in advocacy, with a focus on self-advocacy, and increase community engagement,” reported QNews. 

According to Emily Unity, a member of the OVOLOW project’s advisory committee, the new online platform allowed them to share the complexities of living their life as a queer person with a disability while designing the project.

“I don’t get to choose between being queer or disabled or a person of colour. I’m all these things and so much more. Our lived experiences are so complex and can’t be broken down into bite-sized pieces,” said Unity.  

The OVOLOW online platform has been described as an “online learning hub” where LGBTQ+ people with disabilities can go to participate in digital workshops or avail of toolkits. Generally, the project focuses heavily on storytelling, advocacy and community participation to create a space where LGBTQ+ people with disabilities can share their stories, learn from others, and come together as a community for the purpose of self-advocacy. 

The online platform similarly hopes to increase visibility for LGBTQ+ people with disabilities, as well as provide community support to enact positive change. 

While the OVOLOW platform is still in its infancy, the team behind the project hopes that it will grow in the coming months as more and more LGBTQ+ people with disabilities share their stories and resources with the community online. 

 

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Unity, who played an active role in steering the strategic direction of the project, said that the advocacy created by the OVOLOW project “must be rooted in intersectionality.”

Unity, who is queer, disabled and multicultural, often struggled to find others who had similar intersectional experiences to them, a fact that encouraged Unity to work on the OVOLOW project. 

“Without intersectionality, we risk only serving select parts of who we are, undermining the inclusivity that we seek to promote,” added Unity.

“To many people, advocacy can seem like an overwhelming and impossible task. But at the end of the day, advocates are just everyday people. We’ve often experienced a difficult journey, so we just want to make other people’s journeys a little easier”. 

In addition to bringing together LGBTQ+ people with disabilities for self-advocacy, the OVOLOW online platform is similarly designed to accommodate a number of disabilities including, seizure disorders, vision impairments, ADHD, cognitive disabilities and more, making the platform incredibly accessible.

For more information on the OVOLOW project, head over to the new platform’s website at www.ourvoices.org.au or check out @ourvoicesourway on Instagram.