Launching A Movement: Hope Holds Power To Enact Change: Take The Lead 5/20/2025

The Power To Turn Advocacy Into Action To Redefine Accessibility

By Jessica Fabus Cheng

When my cousin tripped over an inaccessible sidewalk outside a medical office and prematurely became a wheelchair user, something in me shifted. As a young healthcare practitioner, I was used to advocating inside hospital walls, but witnessing that moment made me realize that systemic barriers outside those walls could be just as devastating. I knew then that speaking up wasn’t optional—it was necessary.
That moment lit the fire behind Accessibility in Action, the platform I built to reframe how brands and businesses view accessibility: not as charity, but as a smart, human-centered strategy.

Yes, You Can: People Working Together Can Change Anything

Issue 2847— May 19, 2025

This was the No. 1 lesson I learned when I joined with civil rights advocates in Odessa, Texas, as they achieved school desegregation and housing restrictions.

People working together, even if they have little formal power, can make change happen if they have a strategy, discipline, and the courage to lead to the goal despite barriers and even setbacks along the way.

It was exactly this observation that has driven my work for social justice ever since.