IAP 196: The Italian American Girl in the Pink Wheelchair: Dom Sessa on Disability Awareness in Italian America

The Italian American Podcast

How is the Italian American experience defined for a person with disabilities? In this week’s episode, we close out the month of July by paying tribute to National Disability Awareness Month with our special guest, Dominique Sessa.

Dominique is a disability advocate and proud Italian American who created “The Girl in the Pink Wheelchair,” which is an advocacy project geared toward helping women and young girls unite, uplift, and support each other as they navigate life with disabilities.

Dominique has been a full-time wheelchair user since she was 17 due to having an unspecified neuromuscular disease-neurological disease of genetic origin. Showing her unstoppable sprit, Dominique says that because her disability is unspecified, it just means she doesn’t know what her personal superpower is yet, as there are people the world over, including babies, with undiagnosed diseases due to genes still being researched.

Determined to help as many people as possible in her own situation, Dominique has brought her platform all the way to Annapolis, Maryland, where she was named Commissioner for the Maryland Commission on Disabilities. She is also the Director of Accessibility and Inclusion for the Water’s Edge Museum in Oxford, Maryland.

When not working on her disability advocacy efforts, Dominique serves the Italian American community at large as the founder of the Facebook group “Old Imagery of Italian Americans, which has more than 2,200 members and grows daily!

Join us as we get to know Dominique in this week’s episode! For more information about her and her work, visit www.thegirlinthepinkwheelchair.com.

This episode is sponsored by Mediaset Italia.

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