In February and March 2026, the ENGAGE Project hosted two events to share knowledge and spark dialogue around disability, gender, leadership, and activism. These events were anchored by an exhibition, Re-imagining from the South: Girls and Women with Disabilities Advocating for Change, featuring artwork, photovoice, cellphilms, and manifestos created by 54 young women and girls with disabilities from Vietnam, India, and South Africa.

On February 26, the first event foregrounded the voices of the ENGAGE Youth Leadership Circle (YLC) directly. Six youth leaders from South Africa, India, and Vietnam, Andiswa from South Africa, Sweety and Aphuja from India, and Em and Panh from Vietnam, joined the online session to speak about their artworks, their journeys, and their visions for the future. They described forming disability-led clubs, demanding respect in the workplace and community, and using art to make others feel what they feel inside.

Coordinated by Linh Thuy Dang with support from local research assistants, the Youth Leadership Circle spent four months, from November 2025 through February 2026, preparing together across three countries. Youth leaders from Vietnam, India, and South Africa worked collectively to establish objectives, identify their audience, surface key themes from their lived experiences and messages, and carefully choose which artworks would represent their communities. This collaborative process was an act of relational agency, one in which young women and girls with disabilities shaped the terms of their own representation and claimed space as knowledge producers within their communities and across borders.

Andiswa, a youth leader from South Africa highlights:

The second event was hosted as a hybrid gathering at the Participatory Cultures Lab (PCL), McGill University. The panel discussion with the participation of Dr. Xuan Thuy Nguyen (ĞÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University), Dr. Claudia Mitchell (McGill University), and Linh Thuy Dang (MA Brock University). Panelists emphasized the importance of centering the voices of girls and young women with disabilities as knowledge producers and leaders in their communities. The discussion also explored how transnational collaboration can support decolonial learning networks and strengthen collective action for social change.

Here are two recordings of the Knowledge Mobilization event series:

Knowledge Mobilization event on February 26, 2026

Knowledge Mobilization event on March 11, 2026

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On October 14, 2025, the Global South-CONNECT: Young women and girls with disabilities create networks for change (GlobalSouth-CONNECT) project officially launched in Kolkata, India.

On the first day of fieldwork, participants began with an Introduction to the Project and an Interactive Ethics Training. They also took part in a Collective Biography Workshop, which created a powerful sense of sharing, connection, and mutual understanding among participants.

Through these activities, young women and girls with disabilities in India reflected on their personal stories and the experiences of others, building the foundation for meaningful collaboration and collective growth.

We are just getting started. Please stay tuned for more updates in the coming days!

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On May 28, 2025, the Engaging Girls and Young Women with Disabilities Across Southern Spaces (ENGAGE) project held the final meeting of its Youth Leadership Circle (YLC). This gathering brought together young leaders from India, Vietnam, and South Africa to share artistic representations of women and girls with disabilities in their communities.

In their drawings, each leader wore traditional attire, symbolizing the rich cultural diversity of the Global South. Their artwork emphasized not only the uniqueness of each individual’s experience with disability but also the unity of women and girls with disabilities in shaping their futures.

A youth leader from India reflected,“There are different kinds of disabilities, and everybody can become a leader. There is potential for leadership in everyone. As leaders from different groups, communities, and states, we can come together. While we are different, we are also united.�

The Vietnam team illustrated their leadership journey – from experiences of exclusion to forming their own club, actively participating in their communities, and becoming powerful advocates for change.

In South Africa, the artwork demonstrated a strong message:”Do not discriminate against us because we are all the same.”
Their presentation addressed the challenges faced by people with disabilities and the need for greater understanding and inclusion. One participant shared,”We have a plan to make people understand us, and to help them learn to love and accept us more.”

This final YLC meeting was a meaningful conclusion to the ENGAGE project and an exciting step forward. We are thrilled to announce the continuation of this youth leadership work through a new research project: GlobalSouthConnect.

The energy, commitment, and creativity of these young leaders show that this is just the beginning of our leadership journey. We are so excited to see what comes next. We will continue!

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On May 4, 2025, the Engaging girls and young women with disabilities across Southern spaces (ENGAGE) project conducted the final local fieldwork for the project in A LÆ°á»›i District, Vietnam. This activity aimed to report research findings to project participants and local partners, fostering two-way dialogue and recognizing the voices of the community.

During the reporting session, the research team summarized the participation journey of women and girls with disabilities in A LÆ°á»›i through three phases:

Phase 1: Building knowledge on community issues
Phase 2: Addressing community issues through concrete actions
Phase 3: Developing networks for collective learning and action

Key research findings presented to the community included: Analysis of the local context and the social position of women and girls with disabilities; Social prejudices and perceptions about disability; Challenges and opportunities in leadership and participation of women and girls with disabilities; Visions for change, and affirmation of the voices and capacities of women and girls with disabilities.

Participants engaged in group discussions to reflect on their leadership journey and provide feedback on the research results. The findings once again affirmed the active participation of women and girls with disabilities. “We were presented with issues that needed to be addressed, and the world got to know about us…�

Through the research results, women and girls with disabilities affirmed their role as agents of change, saying they were “both recipients of information and partners in completing the research outcomes.� A young woman emphasized that listening to and empowering women with disabilities during the information-sharing process is essential. Participants also expressed their desire to widely disseminate the research findings through various formats: community meetings, informational materials, or a compilation of artistic works they created throughout the project journey.

Image 1. Women and girls with disabilities in A LÆ°á»›i District, Vietnam discussing and providing feedback on the research findings

In addition, an art-making activity was carried out to reflect the leadership journey of women and girls with disabilities. Through this activity, participants illustrated the transformations in their journey of capacity building, voice development, and the affirmation of their leadership roles within the community. More than just symbols of change, the artworks also conveyed a message of solidarity—connecting the community of women and girls with disabilities in A Lưới to a broader network of women and girls with disabilities around the world.

Image 2.  Art-making: The leadership journey of women and girls with disabilities in A Luoi district, Vietnam

With the commitments already made through the Women and Girls with disabilities club, the project remains confident in the ongoing and future journey of women and girls with disabilities in affirming their leadership roles.

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Happy International Day of Persons with Disabilities!

This year, as we celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we are proud to present the third edition of the ENGAGE newsletter. This edition highlights the growth in knowledge, experiences, and praxis demonstrated by young women and girls with disabilities in India, Vietnam, and South Africa over the past three years. As we enter the final year of this project, we aim to share critical insights, initiatives, and practices that participants in each site have developed through their engagement in different aspects of the project. While each local research team takes unique steps toward mobilizing project outcomes with relevant stakeholders and communities, we reaffirm the importance of sustaining our commitment to learning with and from diverse contexts, people, and communities across the Global South as part of our shared journey.  

This journey would not have been possible without the dedication and support of ENGAGE partners, researchers, stakeholders, community members, and, most importantly, the young women and girls with disabilities in the three project sites. As reflected in the updates below, these young women and girls have shown that they can actively contribute to knowledge creation with their peers, networks, and communities. Their efforts underscore a decolonial and transformative approach to leadership and activism, challenging traditional narratives and paving the way for inclusive change.  

Additionally, we are excited to share research outcomes from related initiatives, such as the Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development (EDID) project focusing on the Vietnam case study, along with updates on partners’ activities and knowledge mobilization efforts. By expanding our learning networks, we ensure that each step we take contributes to creating decolonial spaces for knowledge production and collective activism, fostering the potential for social transformation in marginalized communities across the Global South.  

Happy International Day of Persons with Disabilities! 

In solidarity, 

Xuan Thuy Nguyen 

Associate Professor and ENGAGE’s project director 

Decolonial Disability Studies Collective (DDSC) 

Read and download our Newsletter 

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Learning with and from the global South:

Emerging insights from decolonial disability work 

Editors: Xuan Thuy Nguyen & Nandini Ghosh

Despite calls to decolonize Western disability studies over recent years (Goldman, 2016; Puar, 2023; Soldatic & Abay, 2024; Chataika & Goodley, 2024; Onazi, 2024), there has been limited engagement with crucial questions: What can be learned from the lives and struggles of disabled people in the global South? How might insights emerging from disability studies and social movements in the South contribute to a more critical understanding of Southern theories, discourses, and praxis? Furthermore, how can we meaningfully engage with Southern disability epistemologies and practices as forms of epistemic struggles? What is required to disrupt the colonial power structures within the Western epistemic paradigm that have shaped disability politics? Finally, how can we re-center Southern epistemologies and geopolitics as an alternative approach to understanding disability and intersectional oppressions?

This proposed project aims to explore how Southern theories, discourses, and practices can be critically examined through emerging intersectional and decolonial perspectives in disability studies. Building on a partnership project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, entitled Learning with and from the global South: Opportunities for Engaging Young Women and Girls with Disabilities (ENGAGE) and the Reviews of Disability Studies special themed issue, , this book aims to: 1) invite scholars and activists to explore stories of disability in the global South as sites of epistemic and socio-political struggles; 2) examine the tensions and challenges arising in these contexts, considering how they may create alternative spaces for understanding the global South as a source of knowledge production; and 3) explore how decolonial thinking about disability in the global South can disrupt coloniality and foster activist alliances that build solidarity and drive transformative change.

Learning with and from the global South denotes epistemic struggles to unsettle the hegemonic structures inherent in Western disability studies by working to reclaim and reposition intellectual and activist projects from the South on an equal basis with the Northern metropole. We use the term “global South� to refer to distinct spaces of epistemic, cultural, and geopolitical struggles where alternative knowledge and praxis are generated, often by marginalized and disadvantaged communities through various sites of resistance (De Soussa Santos, 2018). Decolonial disability studies provides a transgressive way of telling such stories, as it recognizes and embraces epistemic and socio-political tensions as sites for knowledge production (Nguyen et al., 2024). Decoloniality encourages us to think from and with standpoints and from the Southern spaces as ways of reclaiming knowledge that have been invalidated by the Empire (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) and, in so doing, re-imagine stories of disability in ways that recognize more equal and inclusive futures of disabled people in the South.

The contributors are invited to approach and conceptualise decolonial disability studies from a variety of dimensions: histories, epistemologies, methodologies, and knowledge/praxis, and to reflect on how their research can offer alternative approaches to understand disability epistemologies and praxis in the global South. We encourage authors to critically interrogate ways in which Western disability studies may have ignored, erased, or marginalized disability in the global South through epistemic, cultural, historical, and geo-political projects developed by the western Empire and/or through local knowledge systems that buttress unequal power relations with and among disabled people and their communities. Additionally, we seek to create spaces for intersectional and activist knowledge/praxis to amplify the voices and activism of Indigenous, Black, queer, transgendered disabled women, minorities, children and youth who have been invisible from the disability rights movement in the global North. How can research with and by marginalized disabled people in the global South be recognized as a part of decolonial praxis which works with and against dynamic power structures in their own spaces?

Methodologically, we encourage the contributors to critically reflect on their theories, approaches, and methodologies and to consider how decolonial approaches may inadvertently work to produce/reproduce coloniality in specific contexts, and how researchers and activists may work together to reinvent moments of decolonial resistance without reinforcing ableism in such spaces. We also invite the contributors to re-imagine what might be learned and unlearned from their research, as well as how their work may create an alternative option for social change in the Global South.

Tentative submission timelines

-Abstract submission: September 25, 2024

-First draft submission: June 30, 2025

-Feedback from editors: July 31, 2025

-Revised chapter submission: August 31, 2025

The post Calls for contributions appeared first on Decolonial Disability Studies Collective.

Factsheet

Impact of COVID on girls and women with disabilities in Vietnam

We are pleased to announce the release of our new factsheet on the impact of COVID-19 on girls and women with disabilities in the ‘Transforming Disability Knowledge, Research, and Activism’ (TDKRA) project. This factsheet highlights how the pandemic has affected the social circumstances of women and girls with disabilities. It also sheds light on the challenges participants faced, including access to nutrition, healthcare, education, employment, financial stability, and physical, mental, and social well-being. Based on the recommendations from the girls and women with disabilities, we hope this factsheet serves as a valuable tool for policy advocacy, promoting the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in Vietnam.

Two girls with disabilities share their drawings about COVID-19.

Access to the Factsheet on the Impact of COVID-19 on girls and women with disabilities in Vietnam (Vietnamese version).

The post TDKRA_Factsheet_Impact of COVID on girls and women with disabilities in Vietnam (Vietnamese version). appeared first on Decolonial Disability Studies Collective.

Learning with and from the global South:

Emerging insights from decolonial disability work 

Editors: Xuan Thuy Nguyen & Nandini Ghosh

Despite calls to decolonize Western disability studies over recent years (Goldman, 2016; Puar, 2023; Soldatic & Abay, 2024; Chataika & Goodley, 2024; Onazi, 2024), there has been limited engagement with crucial questions: What can be learned from the lives and struggles of disabled people in the global South? How might insights emerging from disability studies and social movements in the South contribute to a more critical understanding of Southern theories, discourses, and praxis? Furthermore, how can we meaningfully engage with Southern disability epistemologies and practices as forms of epistemic struggles? What is required to disrupt the colonial power structures within the Western epistemic paradigm that have shaped disability politics? Finally, how can we re-center Southern epistemologies and geopolitics as an alternative approach to understanding disability and intersectional oppressions?

This proposed project aims to explore how Southern theories, discourses, and practices can be critically examined through emerging intersectional and decolonial perspectives in disability studies. Building on a partnership project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, entitled Learning with and from the global South: Opportunities for Engaging Young Women and Girls with Disabilities (ENGAGE) and the Reviews of Disability Studies special themed issue, , this book aims to: 1) invite scholars and activists to explore stories of disability in the global South as sites of epistemic and socio-political struggles; 2) examine the tensions and challenges arising in these contexts, considering how they may create alternative spaces for understanding the global South as a source of knowledge production; and 3) explore how decolonial thinking about disability in the global South can disrupt coloniality and foster activist alliances that build solidarity and drive transformative change.

Learning with and from the global South denotes epistemic struggles to unsettle the hegemonic structures inherent in Western disability studies by working to reclaim and reposition intellectual and activist projects from the South on an equal basis with the Northern metropole. We use the term “global South� to refer to distinct spaces of epistemic, cultural, and geopolitical struggles where alternative knowledge and praxis are generated, often by marginalized and disadvantaged communities through various sites of resistance (De Soussa Santos, 2018). Decolonial disability studies provides a transgressive way of telling such stories, as it recognizes and embraces epistemic and socio-political tensions as sites for knowledge production (Nguyen et al., 2024). Decoloniality encourages us to think from and with standpoints and from the Southern spaces as ways of reclaiming knowledge that have been invalidated by the Empire (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) and, in so doing, re-imagine stories of disability in ways that recognize more equal and inclusive futures of disabled people in the South.

The contributors are invited to approach and conceptualise decolonial disability studies from a variety of dimensions: histories, epistemologies, methodologies, and knowledge/praxis, and to reflect on how their research can offer alternative approaches to understand disability epistemologies and praxis in the global South. We encourage authors to critically interrogate ways in which Western disability studies may have ignored, erased, or marginalized disability in the global South through epistemic, cultural, historical, and geo-political projects developed by the western Empire and/or through local knowledge systems that buttress unequal power relations with and among disabled people and their communities. Additionally, we seek to create spaces for intersectional and activist knowledge/praxis to amplify the voices and activism of Indigenous, Black, queer, transgendered disabled women, minorities, children and youth who have been invisible from the disability rights movement in the global North. How can research with and by marginalized disabled people in the global South be recognized as a part of decolonial praxis which works with and against dynamic power structures in their own spaces?

Methodologically, we encourage the contributors to critically reflect on their theories, approaches, and methodologies and to consider how decolonial approaches may inadvertently work to produce/reproduce coloniality in specific contexts, and how researchers and activists may work together to reinvent moments of decolonial resistance without reinforcing ableism in such spaces. We also invite the contributors to re-imagine what might be learned and unlearned from their research, as well as how their work may create an alternative option for social change in the Global South.

Tentative submission timelines

-Abstract submission: September 7, 2024

-First draft submission: June 30, 2025

-Feedback from editors: July 31, 2025

-Revised chapter submission: August 31^st, 2025

Access the PDF file

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RDS Special Issue: Conversations with/Across the Global South; Towards Decolonial Disability Futurities (Vol. 19 Nos. 3 & 4 [2024])

We are thrilled to announce the release of a special issue of The Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal titled “Conversations With/Across the Global South: Towards Decolonial Disability Futurities” (Volume 19 Numbers 3 & 4).

Guest Editors: Xuan Thuy Nguyen (ĞÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University), Shilpaa Anand (BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus), Alexis Padilla (University of Missouri Saint Louis).

Thinking with Decolonial Disability Studies + Ongoing Global Research

This special double issue offers us new ways to imagine stories of disability and the global South. It invites us to consider how we might rethink and help create more just and inclusive futures that recognize the equal value of global South ways of knowing and anti-ableist practices. Additionally, the issue features other ongoing global research.

Plain language abstracts for all articles are available at:

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Youth Leadership Circle Zoom Meeting in May 2024

Today, on May 16, 2024, representatives of girls and young women with disabilities in India, Vietnam, and South Africa came together on Zoom for our annual meeting called the Youth Leadership Circle.

As disability leaders, they talked about their experiences in advocacy work in their community. Also, they discussed the challenges they face and shared ideas on how to make things better. They showed that when they come together, they can do amazing things!

Let’s cheer for these awesome leaders and keep rooting for them as they make a difference!

The image above displays a Zoom screenshot featuring the participation of the India team, Linh Dang, Nhi Truong, Dr. Thuy Nguyen, the Vietnam team, Dana Corfield, Dr. Claudia Mitchell, and the South Africa team.

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