2006 Paul G. Hearne/
AAPD Leadership Award Recipients Announced

Award Presentations to be Made March 8, 2006 in Washington, DC

(WASHINGTON, DC) December 12, 2005 — The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) announces that the following two individuals have been selected by a national advisory committee to receive the 2006 Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Awards for emerging leaders with disabilities:

• Megan O’Neil, Oakland, California
• Anisha Imhoff-Kerr, Albuquerque, New Mexico

“AAPD is delighted to honor and recognize these extraordinary individuals with this year’s Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Awards,” says Andrew J. Imparato, AAPD President and CEO. “They have both demonstrated a commitment to growing the strength and influence of the disability rights movement, and helping to build bridges to a more inclusive society.”

The 2006 Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Award recipients, whose biographies are attached, were selected on a highly competitive application basis by a national advisory committee to receive cash awards of $10,000 each to further their work in the disability community.

This award program was established by The Milbank Foundation for Rehabilitation in 1999, to recognize and carry on the work of Paul G. Hearne, AAPD’s founder and a renowned leader in the national disability community, and to realize Paul’s goal of cultivating emerging leaders to carry on the disability movement. Administration of the program was passed to AAPD in 2000. To date, 40 awards of $10,000 each have been made.

AAPD is grateful to the sponsors of the Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Awards Program: Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation and The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation.

These award recipients will be honored guests at AAPD’s fifth-annual AAPD Leadership Gala on March 8, 2006 at the Capital Hilton, Washington, DC. During this commemorative event, each recipient will be presented with a cash award, as well as a handsome crystal flame that signifies the passing of the torch of leadership. The award presentations will be made by Members of Congress.

Founded by Paul G. Hearne in 1995 to give people with disabilities more consumer power and a stronger public voice, AAPD is the country’s largest cross-disability membership organization, with more than 120,000 members. AAPD’s mission is to politically and economically empower the 56 million people living with disabilities in the U.S. Toward that end, AAPD is dedicated to educating businesses and the general public about disability issues, and providing membership benefits, such as financial services and product discounts. AAPD helps to unite the diverse community of people with disabilities, including their family, friends and supporters, and to be a national voice for change in implementing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency.

Biographies of the 2006 Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Award Recipients

Megan O’Neil is a recognized expert on asset building for people with disabilities. She is the Access to Assets Project Coordinator at the World Institute on Disability (WID) in Oakland, California, which strives to expand the capacity of lending institutions, asset building programs and disability organizations to increase the inclusion of people with disabilities in poverty reduction programs.

A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she became a paraplegic in 1995 as the result of a car accident. It was her own experience as a disabled person that led to her advocacy and activism, and she has said that life on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is what made her realize that she wanted more from life and from herself. In 2004, she sought to gain experience in the area of asset development, choosing as well to postpone graduate school.

Megan has since become a strong advocate for people with disabilities in the acquisition of capital and assets, explaining that poverty is endemic to the disability community and life on public benefits ensures subsistence, thus resulting in complacency and endangering our future. Megan is building bridges between the assets building and disability communities, providing information on how best to serve people with disabilities at all the major asset building conferences.

Explains Kathy Martinez, WID executive director, “In her short career as a disability advocate/activist, Megan has become a powerful force in the struggle to reduce poverty within the disability population by breaking down the walls of myth, misconception and ignorance that prevent disabled people from being considered good loan risks or entrepreneurs.” Megan is highly-regarded by the disability community on asset development issues, presenting to many groups, including the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel.

It is Megan’s goal within five years to eliminate asset tests on structured savings vehicles and to exclude all savings accounts with limited access (penalties occur with early withdrawal) from SSI asset calculations. She emphasizes the necessity for increased advocacy and awareness, and more interaction with high-level policymakers.

Anisha Imhoff-Kerr is a young advocate who is striving to reduce stigma in the educational community in order to make it easier for people with disabilities to get a meaningful education. A full-time student at Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, where she is pursuing a double-major in political science and psychology, Anisha was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of eleven. It is through her own experience as a college student, and her teachers’ limited experience in dealing with disabled students, that she began advocating for ways to educate educators on how to deal with students with disabilities.

Anisha created a Forum for educators on students with mental health issues, which was held April 2005. Most recently, she formulated a student survey and a list of questions for faculty and student interviews; she surveyed 450 students and 30 teachers about their knowledge of mental health topics, special services, etc., finding that there was very little knowledge in this area. Anisha intends to fold the findings from this survey into the expansion of the Forum.

She also uses her own experiences to help others by presenting workshops at conferences, and through State of Mine, a nonprofit youth-run advocacy organization she created. Through State of Mine, Anisha produced a video entitled Bipolar Unmasked, which illustrates what it is like to live a normal life with bipolar disorder as a teenager. She subsequently coordinated an art show, Visions, which displayed art created by teenagers with disabilities expressing what it is like to live with a disability.

In 2004, Anisha was awarded the Amy Biehl Youth Spirit Award in recognition of her work with State of Mine and in the community promoting mental health awareness. She received a grant to continue those initiatives, with which she started a high school health class program that discusses behavioral health topics.

Anisha, who also works fulltime for the New Mexico state government in the Children’s Cabinet, envisions law school in her future. She would like to widen the work she’s done for college mental health awareness, and recruit other youth advocates to continue and expand upon the work she is doing.

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the country's largest cross-disability membership organization, promotes the economic and political empowerment of all 56 million children and adults with disabilities in the U.S. It was founded in 1995 to help unite the diverse community of people with disabilities, including their family, friends and supporters, and to be a national voice for change in implementing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). AAPD members have access to a full range of financial services through a federal credit union, a discounted mail order prescription program, and a quarterly AAPD newsletter. For additional member benefits, or to learn more about AAPD's advocacy efforts and major program areas, visit the AAPD website.