Meet Mary Fashik
Founder of the #UpgradeAccessibility movement, Mary Fashik is a disability justice consultant and public speaker, and host of the award-winning podcast The Politics of Disability.
[Image Description: A Lebanese woman with curly hair and glasses, who is smiling. She is wearing a gold pendant necklace and a charcoal grey, knitted, v-neck sweater.]
Mary Fashik (she/her) is a Lebanese born, queer disability rights activist, author, public speaker, and workshop facilitator.
In 2019, she founded Upgrade Accessibility, a movement designed to challenge today’s accessibility standards. Since its inception, the movement has grown and broadened its lens to include disability rights, intersectionality, disability justice, equity and unequivocally supports Black Lives Matter/Black Disabled Lives Matter.
Through a variety of workshops and trainings, Mary helps companies understand how deeply rooted ableism is in their organizational structure and how to implement important changes.
Mary strives daily to shed light on issues affecting those in the disabled/chronically ill community, particularly those that affect multi-marginalized members of the community.
She was named an honoree on Diversability’s 2021 D-30 Disability Impact List, where she currently works as their Community Engagement Manager.
Her podcast, The Politics of Disability, was named Best Interview Podcast at the 2022 Astoria Film Festival.
Most recently, she was named as an inductee for the Susan M. Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame, Class of 2022.