Juliet Salih, a schoolteacher with cerebral palsy, discusses her lifelong goal to teach children and to eliminate the barriers people with disabilities face. She’s always known she wanted to be a teacher, sharing that when she was a child, she’d pretend her bedroom walls were the walls of the classroom and that her siblings were her students. As a teacher, she aims to ensure her students “recognize the inherent power behind language.”

Juliet is no stranger to the power of language. She bluntly calls out the challenges facing this country, particularly for Americans with disabilities. She calls out the current system and demands for better, saying:

“There are systemic problems in our education system… so many things that are wrong right now and are not being handled well.”

Juliet channels her frustration with widespread inaccessibility into a force that motivates her to stay politically active. This is a message we have heard time and time again from disability activists, the only choice we have in the face of inaccessibility is to keep fighting for a more equal and just society. As Juliet puts it:

“Seeing what people with disabilities have to go through just to exercise our political right to vote makes me angry enough to stay politically active because I want to see that changed.”

For this reason, Juliet and NDRN encourage everyone to vote so that they can be a part of the change we need in our healthcare, education, and political systems. Be like Juliet, and use your anger and frustration with the lack of accessibility to drive you to be a force of change in this country. The first step is checking your registration status, and then making a plan to cast your ballot either by mail or in person!