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Our Founders

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Patricia Almeida - Creator, Co-founder (Brazil)

Pat is mother of a daughter with Down syndrome, a journalist, disability advocate, and Plain Language specialist with an MA in Disability Studies. She is also a four-time cancer survivor. In addition to GADIM, Pat co-founded Movimento Down in Brazil. She founded the news agency Inclusive – Inclusion and Citizenship and Gadim Brasil, and she coordinates the MetaSocial Institute that works with media in Brazil to promote the rights of persons with disabilities.

Catia Malaquias — Co-founder (Australia)

Mother of a son with Down syndrome, Catia Malaquias is a lawyer and advocate for human rights and inclusion of people with disabilities. She is the co-founder of All Means All – The Australian Alliance for Inclusive Education and played a pivotal role in establishing the Australian Coalition for Inclusive Education (ACIE). She also founded Starting With Julius, a project promoting the authentic inclusion of people with disability in mainstream advertising and media. Catia is undertaking a doctoral degree with the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University, Western Australia, and is an External Affiliate of the Centre for Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology. In 2024, she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for service to people with disability, and the Western Australian Portuguese Citizen of the Year Medal.

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Beth is a middle-aged white woman with very short white hair. She is smiling and wearing a white quilted pullover and glasses.

Beth Haller — Co-founder (USA)

Beth Haller is an academic expert in news and entertainment media representation of disability and a retired Disability Studies and Media Studies professor. She identifies as neurodiverse and has multiple chronic illnesses. Her 2023 book with Taylor & Francis is available as a free e-book here: Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More Inclusive World. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 Routledge Companion to Disability and Media (with Gerard Goggin of the University of Sydney and Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is the author of Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She posts about disability in the news here. She was formerly co-editor of the Society for Disability Studies’ scholarly journal, Disability Studies Quarterly, (2003-2006) and has written dozens of articles and book chapters on media and disability.​ Haller was a Fulbright Specialist at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Curtin University, Australia in February 2015 for the project, “Disability, the Media, and Digital Technology: Issues, Challenges, and Future Research.”