ABLE Celebrates National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Each year, millions of individuals face the reality of living with a disability and in October, we had the chance to reflect and elevate the stories of some amazing individuals. During National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), we commemorated the many and varied contributions of people with disabilities to our workplace and collective culture across the world. 

Our ABLE Employee Resource Group dedicated a month of programming to educate our teams about disability challenges in the workplace and celebrate the voices and stories of our workers with disabilities. This year’s theme, Powered by Inclusion: Together, we are ABLE!, represents our vision of a world where people with disabilities can do anything. 

We kicked off the month focusing on Mental Illness Awareness Week with Juntos SOMOS Capaces (Together, we are CapABLE) with AJ Mendez. AJ Mendez - New York Times bestselling author of “Crazy is My Superpower”, former WWE championship wrestler, and mental health advocate - returned to EA to share her experience as a Latina living with Bipolar disorder and answered questions from the (employee) audience. Additionally, each day during the week, we highlighted employees who shared and raised awareness about mental illnesses. We had employees representing Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the United States, showing that mental illness is something that impacts everyone, we are #NotAlone, and work #Together4MH.

The following week, we hosted Driven to Inspire with Nicolas Hamilton. Nicolas, brother of 7-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, lives with Cerebral Palsy, but that has not stopped him from living his dream of being a professional racecar driver in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). Nicolas went from racing in video games (and besting his brother) to racing in real life, constantly defying expectations with his ‘anything is possible’ attitude. He brought that same energy into the Q&A where he talked further about his passions both on track and off track and how his disability does not define who he is.

The second half of the month featured a conversation with SpecialEffect, FIFA devs, and ABLE. We heard inspirational stories on how SpecialEffect has impacted the lives of kids through gaming. EA and ABLE donated 120 FIFA codes to SpecialEffect and employees raised over $2,000 in support of One Special Day. That same day, EA’s Director of Accessibility, Karen Stevens, spoke to us about Working with Disabilities, helping us understand disabled culture and sharing some practical tips we can apply everyday to make our work more accessible.

Rounding out the month, ABLE hosted Existing with a Disability Fireside Chat where ABLE was joined by a handful of employees plus the Senior Specialist in Accessibility at Apple, Patrick “Patty Mac” McDowell, to talk about the ups and down of navigating the world with visible and invisible disabilities. Through the power of storytelling, these individuals shined a light on seeing those with disabilities and what they would like to see changed in the world (and workplace) when it comes to disability.

As the saying goes “nothing about us without us”, we wanted employees and the ABLE community to have a say in which charity would receive a donation. After hearing from hundreds of employees, ABLE will be making a $5,000 donation to New Hope for Kids. New Hope for Kids provides support to children and families grieving the death of a loved one, grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses and provides a series of camps, events and other support to families we serve.

We are all different. Embracing those differences in the workplace and representing them in the games we develop is core to EA’s mission to Inspire the World to Play. The passion from our ABLE leaders, members, and allies alike keeps growing and continues to support our commitment to creating a place where everyone can work as their true, authentic selves. 

-- ABLE ERG