NCIL’s 2020 Annual Conference on Independent Living will be held July 20-23 in Washington, DC. Generous support from sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers last year resulted in a Conference of nearly 1,500 participants! We seek your partnership as we begin to prepare for our 2020 Annual Conference celebration.

Due to last year’s attendance, NCIL’s tremendous successes in 2019, and excitement surrounding the theme and the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the buzz has already started for this year’s Annual Conference on Independent Living, Evolution of Our Revolution.

July 20-23, 2020; Grand Hyatt, Washington

Deadline Extended

NCIL is extending the deadline for our 2020 Call for Workshop Proposals. We will now accept applications until Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Please visit our 2020 conference web page for more information.

Plain Language

We are also pleased to release the plain language version of our 2020 Call for Workshop Proposals.

• Call for Proposals – Plain Language
• Information for Presenters – Plain Language
• Application Form – Plain Language

The plain language application form is also available in Word or plain text.

July 20-23, 2020; Grand Hyatt, Washington

Submit a workshop proposal

NCIL’s Annual Conference is the largest Independent Living event of the year. NCIL regularly hosts over 1,000 people, including grassroots advocates, CIL and SILC leadership, members of Congress, government officials, and representatives from other organizations that work for justice and equity for people with disabilities.

The theme of NCIL’s 2020 Annual Conference on Independent Living will be Evolution of Our Revolution. 2020 will mark the 30th anniversary of the ADA and serve as a time to reflect and celebrate. We must also look forward and commit ourselves to the promise that the IL Movement belongs to everybody with a disability.

The Independent Living Movement is built on advocacy, love, and empowerment. We must fulfill this promise through discussions and real work to include and elevate individuals with disabilities who have not been welcomed or included.

Together we can build a more just, equitable, inclusive, and powerful Independent Living Movement. Therefore, NCIL seeks workshops that will advance the Independent Living Movement through intersectional discussions of equity, inclusion, and leadership development.

Every year, people come to Washington, DC to attend NCIL’s Annual Conference. We talk about how to make sure people with disabilities can live in our communities and have control over our lives. It is a chance to learn, plan, advocate, and have fun together. But we know the conference is not accessible to everyone in our community. And we want to change that.

Are you interested in presenting at – or attending – the NCIL Conference? Have you found it is not accessible to you? If so, we want to hear from you.

We want to hear from everyone; but we especially want to hear from people from groups who have been underrepresented at the Conference. This includes people whose disabilities are underrepresented, and multi-marginalized disabled people.

We need your input and guidance; but we are ready to do the work. And we are committed to working – on our own, and with you – to address these barriers. We want to make our conference as accessible as possible.

• Tuesday, November 19, 2019
• 1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern
• RSVP
• Video link: https://zoom.us/j/158367875
• Call-in: 1-929-205-6099, or find your local number
• Meeting ID: 158 367 875#

We must make sure that people with disabilities are counted in the 2020 census, to ensure recognition of our diverse communities in every way — program funding, voting, city planning, education, employment, and more. Join the call to learn about and discuss how we can make sure disabled people participate in the census, despite the barriers. We’ll hear from people who have planned census outreach targeting people with disabilities, and we’ll learn from people doing census outreach in other marginalized communities.

Last week NCIL introduced our Sex Ed for People with I/DD videos and discussion guide. We’re so happy that lots of people like the project.  We want you to fill out our evaluation form. This will tell us if the project is helping people.

If the form isn’t accessible to you, please email Cara Liebowitz at [email protected].

• Sex Ed for People with I/DD project page
• Evaluation form

The National Council on Independent Living’s new project helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) learn about sex.

Some of the things we talk about in this project are:

• What sex is
• What gender is
• What a healthy relationship looks like
• How someone can get pregnant
• How to protect yourself against sexually transmitted diseases and infections

There are ten videos. You can watch the videos in any order you want.

• Watch the videos
• Tell us if you found the videos helpful

This project is important because people with I/DD can use the videos by themselves. You can ask someone to help you if you want. But the videos were made for people with I/DD to use even if they don’t have someone to help them. If you work at a Center for Independent Living, you can use this project with your consumers with I/DD.

NCIL wants to thank:

• The WITH Foundation, for giving us the money to make this project
• Rooted In Rights for making the videos
• All the other people who helped us with this project

We are inviting you to join us for the Anthem FitAnthem5K!

On October 5, Anthem Associates will participate in the #FitAnthem5k — an annual event to promote health and wellness across all parts of the Anthem Community. The #FitAnthem5K is a virtual 5K that can be done at any location and is intended for all fitness levels and abilities.

As a part of our support of all individuals with disabilities, we are coordinating with Disabled Sports USA, National Council on Independent Living, and the US Association of Blind Athletes to conduct an informal, in-person 5K in Washington. We invite any members of the disability community to join us as we promote health and wellness and recognize disability identity. For our annual virtual fitness challenge, you may exercise alone or gather in certain locations to exercise as a group. Remember, you can run, walk, roll, push, or skip – you choose the activity and pace that works best for you. The goal is to simply get moving, however you’d like, at your own pace. And don’t forget to use Twitter to post your personal finish line pictures using hashtag – #FitAnthem5K.