Helena has been invited to join the leadership of The Disability-Centered Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Project. This project noted how the global pandemic heightened inequities across disability, race, culture, and language and how disabled folx of color were already advocating for racial and disability justice and accessibility. This project aims to address these critical inequities by co-constructing intentional, responsive, and accessible curriculum for teachers and future teachers. The aim is to shift their beliefs about disability at the intersections and subsequently inform their future practices in P-12 classroom spaces. This team will work together for a year during the 2023-2024 academic school year. Helena has been invited to join a team that includes Lydia X. Z. Brown, Brianna Dickens, Tiny (Lisa) Gray-Garcia, Keith Jones, Dr. Saili S. Kulkarni, Lateef Mcleod, Dr. Amanda L. Miller, Leroy F. Moore, Jr., Dr. Emily A. Nusbaum, and Dr. Holly Pearson.
Helena is the invited plenary keynote speaker for the NEA, the nation’s largest labor union with over three million members. Helena speaks on the topic of Disability Justice, a focus of the NEA in 2023.
Born between the mid 1990s to late 2000s, Gen Z is the most ethnically diverse generation and the first to have grown up fully in a digital era – but what really sets it apart from other generations beyond the technological advances of the times is its dedication to inclusion and societal change. 70% of Gen Zers are involved in a social or political cause, utilizing digital spaces and technologies intuitively to advocate like never before. This Eventbrite dialogue, moderated by Diversability’s Marie Dagenais-Lewis, features young disabled activists who are blazing trails!
Helena was once again asked to join some of the co-authors of the groundbreaking Equity & Excellence in Education issue on Disability Justice for a national conversation around the articles in their issue of the journal.
Helena was invited to read alongside esteemed poets Jessica Wilson-Gardenas, Gustavo Hernandez, Briana Muñoz, and David A. Romero. These four critically acclaimed poets were speaking about writing and embodying resistance in their poetry and community.
The editors and authors were excited that their proposal to AERA was accepted for their Strong Black Girls book. Helena presented alongside her co-authors in the book – Autumn Adia Griffin, Taylor Monique Tucker, Valerie N. Adams-Bass, Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards, and Asia S. Thomas. The session was Chaired by Lynnette K. Mawhinney, one of the editors of the book and the Discussants were Danielle Lorraine Apugo and Afiya Mbilishaka, the other two editors of the book. Helena received a standing ovation for her presentation!
Helena was the first invited youth speaker in this important series about intersectional Disability Justice. She talked about four important points to make schools more equitable and claimed that “Love is my forcefield.” She also defined what a “Champion” teacher is, stating that they are a teacher who makes her succeed and sees her assets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ECsG2WTk4&t=1340s6766y
Helena was an invited speaker alongside Dr. Lisette E. Torres – a senior researcher at TERC, Dr. Nirmala Erevelles – a Professor at The University of Alabama, Dr. Federico Waitoller – a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Lingyu Li – a multilingual doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The group of five scholars held a dialogue on disability justice that became a featured article in Equity and Excellence in Education.
Helena was invited to open up the College’s Spring Faculty retreat by presenting her original 2019 poem titled “Future Me Thanks You” that she penned for the National Institutes for Historically-Underserved Students as their designated Conference Poet.
Helena was invited to speak to a class of future elementary school teachers on how her own elementary curriculum had been colonized and how she confronted it in her assignments and decolonized what she had been taught.
Helena was excited to speak at this international conference. Here is the feedback she got
from the conference committee on her proposal: “Our conference team was excited
about your abstract and found your autobiographical and narrative approach to the topic of the geographies of Black girlhoods to be compelling. We were struck by your
comment, ‘I hope you let a young Black scholar speak,’ which said much to us about how
you see yourself and your relation to scholarship and voice and where and when your
knowledge is given space.”
Helena joined seven other scholars from their book Strong Black Girls in this book tour. They spoke at SANKOFA Video, Books & Café in Washington, DC. SANKOFA is a sanctuary for Pan-African culture.
Helena submitted a conference proposal to talk about her Black girl cultural assets at this local Los Angeles conference. She was very excited when it was accepted and was able to do an hour presentation to veteran educators. The teachers were really nice and receptive. Here is what one of them had to say about her conference presentation: “Amazingly refreshing to witness Miss Helena’s scholarship and confidence! Her ideas and voice are so strong and I would love to hear more from her.”
Helena was asked to speak to a class of future educators who are in a children’s literature class and talk about how she became a successful writer. The professor wanted her to show graduate students how she writes from her own experiences as a model for them because they were going to do a major class project where they had to write an original children’s story based on something in their own lives. Helena spoke to two different sections of this course.
Helena and her family are very involved in her Dad’s hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia. They know lots of people there because Helena was the Designated Conference Poet at the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students Conference. The President of West Virginia University Parkersburg, Dr. Chris Gilmer, invited the family to speak to the Rotary Club. They spoke about crossing borders as a same-sex, multiracial family created through the wonderful process of adoption and how, when they come home to visit Helena’s grandparents in Parkersburg, it is like they are in another world but at the same time it is like they are coming home.
In June 2020 the principal of Alliance Judy Ivie Burton Technology Academy High School invited Helena to be the high school graduation speaker. He said he had “been impressed and inspired by her dedication towards social justice and being a voice others can look up to.” Helena was shocked and excited that the administration of a high school in Los Angeles followed her writing, art, and activism and wanted her to be their graduation speaker. She spoke about how too often adults underestimate what young people can do, about the loss they all felt in the 2019-2020 school year because of COVID-19, about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter Movement, and how it would be their turn to vote and make the world a better place than how it had been handed to them.
Helena was invited back for the third year in a row to speak with new teachers about how kids in fifth grade can tackle tough topics. She spoke to two different classes. Here are what some of the students had to say about her lecture. “I am inspired that she is young and highly educated about what adults decide to turn their eyes away from. She’s so young and that will only make her an empowering activist.” “Helena’s presentation impacted me in that it made me reflect about how important it is to be able to talk to children about tough topics because they are already living them.”
Helena was invited to be the Designated Conference Poet for The National Institutes for Historically-Underserved Students Think Tank in November 2019 and was asked to write an original poem reflecting the theme of “Rise Up.” She wrote and delivered an original poem titled “Future Me Thanks You” and opened the conference with it on November 7th. The purpose of the Institutes is to research and identify common barriers to educational equity and success for all historically-underserved students. She spoke alongside Aaron Abeyta, an American Book Award Winner.
Helena presented to 45 graduate education students on how she tackles tough topics like race, class, gender, sexual orientation, bullying, and a plethora of other topics that some think are too sensitive or controversial for young children. She read her published works, spoke, and fielded questions from the graduate students.
Helena was invited back to speak to more future educators about how young children tackle tough topics. She is a semester regular guest speaker now for Liberal Studies 301 – Schooling in a Multicultural Society. The professor for the class, Dr. Jen Stacy, posted this on her social media after Helena presented: “Dr. Helena Donato-Sapp schooled us all on principles of justice, equity, humanism, and kindness again this semester. Thank you, Helena, for teaching future teachers that kids can understand tough issues and are paving the way to a better future.”
Helena was invited to the Innovative Woman 2.0 Fast Pitch Competition & Networking to pitch her original business idea to a large university audience and a panel of seven distinguished judges. She was invited to represent the future of entrepreneurship and she was the youngest participant. The organizers of the event were so impressed with her pitch that they invited her to be a part of CSUDH’s Incubator Hatchery Launchpad Program to help her launch her new business enterprise.
Helena was invited to speak about teaching controversial topics in the elementary classroom to two different sections of Liberal Studies students who are learning how to become elementary teachers. The class – Schooling in a Multicultural Society – had students who thought teaching tough topics was either inappropriate or too difficult for young children. Dr. Jen Stacy, Professor of Liberal Studies, invited Helena to come and share her writing, art, and activism so that her college students could see that young children are mature enough to tackle tough topics.
Helena and her two fathers were invited to speak about The FAIR Act at The California History Project Summer Institute. Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, also known as the FAIR Education Act (Senate Bill 48) and informally described as the LGBTQ History Bill, is a California law which compels the inclusion of the political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into educational textbooks and the social studies curricula in California schools. Helena spoke to over 40 veteran educators about what it is like to have same-sex parents.
After Helena’s school-wide 3rd-grade science fair project on Rotten Raspberries, she found out there was a regional science conference for local students to attend. STEM in Action Kids Conference was put on by one of the local universities, California State University Dominguez Hills, where her dad works. He told the team putting on the conference about Helena’s love of science and about Rotten Raspberries and they invited her to present at their conference. Helena was the only child presenter at this conference and presented for two hours to different kids about the process of decomposition. She was 8 years old.
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