Advocacy
This department leads our issue-based campaigns, electoral engagement, member organizing, and policy work, holding institutions accountable while centering the voices of disabled people most affected by the systems we're fighting to change.
This department shapes how DDP's story is told inside our organization and out in our city. From brand messaging and resident engagement to supporting fundraising and documenting our impact through an evolving story bank, Comms ensures our voice is consistent, accessible, and bold.
DAC is DDP's fee-for-service consulting arm, offering anti-ableism trainings, accessibility assessments, and technical assistance to organizations, businesses, and institutions across Metro Detroit and beyond.
This team oversees organizational infrastructure, financial management, fundraising and donor development, and the internal systems that keep DDP running effectively. They work to ensure our staff are supported, our resources are aligned with our values, and our organization is built to last.
Kaci Pellar
Policy Manager
Eric Welsby
Advocacy Organizer
Communications
Disability Access Consulting (DAC)
Operations
Our Team
Rami Alvarez
Communications Director
Veronica Thomas
Communications Coordinator
Ruth Le
Senior Manager
Ani Grigorian
Consulting Manager
Dessa Cosma
Executive Director
Jenifer Daniels
Deputy Director
Kenia Flores
Voting Access and Election Protection Fellow
Interns & Fellows
Embedded across our departments, our Interns and Fellows gain hands-on experience in organizing, voting access, disability history, and logistics – all while contributing meaningfully to our local movement!
Arianna Finley
Advocacy Intern
Staff Bios
Jenifer Daniels
Deputy Director (she/they)
Jenifer Daniels (she/they) integrates cultural wisdom with modern organizational design to build more equitable and resilient structures. As an organizational design strategist, she has stewarded transformative initiatives including a $1.25M trust-based mutual aid fund and socially responsible real estate development. A serial entrepreneur, she founded Colorstock, the first culturally intelligent stock photography marketplace. Through Detroit Human Capital, she practices sankofa philanthropy by investing in Black and Brown entrepreneurs and placemakers in Detroit, the traditional territory of the Anishinabe (ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯ) peoples.
Image Description: Portrait of Jenifer Daniels, a Black woman with short, natural curly hair. She has a warm smile and is wearing bright pink lipstick. She's dressed in a sleeveless peach-colored top and an intricately braided necklace in a matching peach tone. The background is slightly blurred but appears to be a bright, airy indoor space.
Ani Grigorian
Disability Access Consulting Manager (she/her)
Ani is a geriatric social worker turned accessibility consultant who has been with DDP since September of 2020. She has worked with a range of organizations from Allied Media Projects and Red Bull Arts Detroit to Ford Motor Company (Ford Smart Mobility) on initiatives centered around accessibility, aging, and mobility. Ani is passionate about preserving places of joy in Detroit, and ensuring that longtime, aging Detroiters can continue to access these spaces as the city develops and changes. Outside of DDP, she operates Ani G Accessibility focused on improving access in Music, Art, and events. Ani can be found out and about sitting in corners or on the dance floor enjoying Detroit’s vibrant nightlife.
Ani grew up moving in and out of the U.S. her whole life. She now gets to call Detroit “home” and is a resident of Detroit’s Virginia Park Community. She identities as disabled by way of chronic pain.
Image Description: Portrait of Ani from the chest up. Her straight dark hair blows back in the wind and she smirks with a closed-mouth smile. She has white skin, and wears gold earrings, a gold chain necklace and a lavender v neck shirt that seams down the middle.
Kaci Pellar
Policy Manager (she/they)
Kaci Pellar (she/they) is Detroit Disability Power’s Policy Manager. In 2020, Kaci joined the DDP team as a graduate intern, then joined staff as Policy Analyst in 2021, and transitioned to Policy Manager in 2023. Kaci earned her Bachelor of Social Work from Central Michigan University in 2019 and her Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan in 2021. Previously, she worked at MidMichigan Home Care as a medical social worker in hospice and home care, as an intern with the National Association of Social Workers-Michigan Chapter, as a volunteer for Early Head Start, and as the founding President of CMU’s chapter of Refugee Outreach Collective. Kaci collaborates on councils, advisory boards, and coalitions as a Mad disabled activist.
Kaci dreams of blocks, neighborhoods, and places where we all freely give and receive love, without fear of being left behind or not having the resources we need to live fully as ourselves. Kaci loves having existential conversations, seeking and creating opportunities to build connection and power, hiking, and cuddling their family – her partner, daughter, three dogs, and two cats!
Image Description: A circular headshot of a smiling, late-20s white femme-presenting person. She has long, wavy dark brown hair. They are wearing a bright pink shirt.
Dessa Cosma
Executive Director (she/her)
Dessa grew up in the Deep South, splitting her time between New Orleans, LA and Augusta, GA. She’s been a social justice activist for as long as she can remember, starting her environmental, LGBTQ, and reproductive justice efforts in high school. She attended the University of Georgia, earning bachelor's degrees in International Affairs, Women’s Studies, and Anthropology. After graduation, Dessa moved to Detroit to work as the Senior Field Organizer for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan.
In 2014, Dessa graduated with a Masters in Social Justice from Marygrove College. At that time, she was the Michigan Program Director for the Center for Progressive Leadership, training hundreds of activists, candidates, and campaign managers across the state. She then became the Executive Director of the Economic Justice Alliance of Michigan, which she helped to start in collaboration with some of Detroit’s most dedicated economic and racial justice champions. Since 2017, Dessa has been a facilitator with Allies for Change, which provides anti-oppression education, training, and resources for individuals and organizations committed to social change. She was a University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women+ Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist from 2017-2019 and was a founding design team member of the Transforming Power Fund.
In 2018, Dessa started Detroit Disability Power to grow the organizing power of the disability community and to continue bridging the gap between the disability community and larger social justice movements. She has particular interest in disability focused political work that is grounded in anti-racism and economic justice.
Image Description: Circular portrait of Dessa sitting in her wheelchair in front of trees and water. She smiles in a black tee shirt with shiny, dangling earrings. She has long blonde hair and light skin. Her arms come together in front of her lap with her fingers interlaced.
Kenia Flores
Voting Access and Election Protection Fellow (she/her)
In addition to her role at DDP, Kenia serves as a Government Relations Analyst at Learning Ally, where she helps advance Learning Ally’s education policy priorities with Governors’ offices, state legislatures, and Departments of Education.
Prior to that, she served as an Intern and Staff Assistant in the United States Senate in both the district and Capitol Hill offices, serving constituents across North Carolina.
Kenia earned her Bachelor of Arts in Politics and International Affairs from Furman University in 2020. She developed much of her organizing and advocacy skills through her involvement on the Riley Institute Advance Team and through her role as Vice President of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS). As Vice President of NABS, Kenia mentored and led blind students across the nation, met with Members of Congress to discuss the organization’s legislative priorities, coordinated advocacy campaigns for the membership, and coordinated local and regional events for blind students.
Outside of work, Kenia enjoys getting lost in a good book, trying new coffee shops, rock climbing, and going on long walks.
Image Description: A light-skinned, femme-presenting person with length dark brown hair, a green and white shirt, and a small silver necklace smiles in front of a blurred green background.
Ruth Le
Disability Access Consulting Senior Manager (she/her)
Ruth Le (she/her), PMP, MEd is an educator, coach, project manager, and long time social justice advocate. She was born and raised in Boston, MA and earned her bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Southern California and master’s in Special Education from Loyola Marymount University. She taught high school students with disabilities for seven years in Los Angeles and coached middle school teachers in New York City how to implement learning for all students with differentiation and engagement. Prior to joining Detroit Disability Power, Ruth worked at the University of Michigan designing online courses alongside faculty with accessibility and diversity in mind. She also works facilitating workshops on focus, identity development and other topics in education.
Ruth believes story telling, inquiry, and social emotional learning are the key tenets for development and growth. A daughter of refugees, Ruth’s value for intersectionality and inclusion comes from the belief that no one is free until everyone is free. In her spare time, Ruth enjoys discovering new restaurants, staying active through tennis or volleyball and singing to pop tunes. She also loves to explore with her family - partner and Korean Jindo/German Shepherd dog, Gracie, named after the great activist Grace Lee Boggs.
Image Description: A smiling Southeast asian woman, looking into the camera with a blurred brick background. Long black, brown, and blonde highlighted hair, wearing a navy blazer, white shirt, and pink, green, blue scarf.
Ramiro Alvarez
Communications Director (he/they)
Ramiro “Rami” Alvarez was born in Durango, Mexico and came to Detroit with their parents in the late 90’s. The child of a teacher and a construction worker, Rami saw at an early age that not all labor was valued equally, and certainly not paid equally. On one hand, Rami holds deep pride for his two homes–Durango and Detroit–as areas rich with working-class innovation, community-centered attitudes, and delicious food. On the other hand, Rami mourns the potential of their two homes–both Durango and Detroit are stereotyped as violent areas with unintelligent residents barely making it by; thus, both Durango and Detroit have been underfunded, undersupported, and under-resourced. A big consequence of this systemic inequality has been health and healthcare access. Rami was radicalized into Disability Justice when their parents’ and their own health became a chronic issue. The health outcomes of immigrant, queer, and disabled people are not set in stone–Rami believes we can create a public health ecosystem that is accessible, affordable, top-quality, and intersectional. Rami blends the communal caregiving values of rural North Mexico, with the Chosen Family model of queer relationships and the values of Disability Justice to combat ableist, racist, and xenophobic power structures that would rather work us to death, literally.
Image Description: Circular photo of a smiling Rami wearing a teal collared shirt. Rami has brown skin, short black hair, ear and nose piercings, and facial hair. Rami’s headshot is taken in front of a blurred office background with a plant.
Veronica Thomas
Communications Coordinator (she/they)
Veronica (she/they) grew up in West Chicagoland, politicized at a young age by the chasm between performative diversity and class inequality within her neighborhood. She's also called Iowa and Michigan home. A Midwesterner at heart, they are passionate about the climate futures of the Great Plains and Great Lakes, knowing the soil will decide how we continue, and every social injustice is an environmental issue. Veronica is an artist, writer and facilitator, exploring creativity as the bridge between individual, cultural, and environmental healing. This quote from activist Vindana Shiva guides her work: "we must reclaim the word 'labor;' it means to give birth, which is creative. So reclaiming our labor is reclaiming our creativity—entering an embodied relationship with the earth." She is passionate about communal ancestor work and finding a cultural sense of belonging deeper than whiteness. They are proud to live in Detroit where their creative practice is rooted in the cultural wealth and activist legacies of Freedom movements long before them.
Veronica has a BA from Grinnell College where she crafted an independent major in Narrative Studies to explore the liberatory potential of media and storytelling. For 5+ years, they have helped value-aligned organizations with communications and digital storytelling projects.
Image Description: A circular headshot of a smiling, mid-20s white femme-presenting person. They have short, wavy dark brown hair and are wearing a chartreuse turtleneck under a black dress.
NaJa’Reé Nixon
Community Care Organizer (she/they)
NaJa’Reé Nixon is Detroit Disability Powers Community Organizer. She has always felt the call to be of service to her community volunteering for many social and environmental justice organizations and causes. She has been deeply impacted by the failure of the medical system's approach to mental health services and how it disproportionately affects people of color, especially in crisis or emergency situations. NaJa’Reé feels that through her work in Advocacy and community building, she is doing her part to bring awareness to the challenges faced by those struggling with mental disabilities and provide support and wellness strategies to the afflicted and their families.
NaJa’Reé graduated from Cass Technical High School. She attended college briefly but as a neurodiverse person, they quickly realized there were a considerable amount of barriers to their success. She leaned more into her love of animals and became a professional dog groomer. During her 12 years in the profession, she learned to manage and teach the trade, eventually opening her own grooming business.
NaJa’Reé found a deep love and necessity for spirituality after facing constant adversities and traumas throughout her life. This led her down the path of light working and she became a healer. NaJee as their preferred name is a certified Reiki Practitioner and wellness facilitator leading meditations and breath work. They dream of a world where more people have access to and knowledge of these healing modalities and the incredible benefits they bestow on the mind, body, and spirit.
“If we wanna change how we as a society treat each other, we must first change how we treat ourselves.” -NaJee
Image Description: A circular photo of NaJa’Reé with long, black, curly hair, silver necklace, gold nose ring, and a black top.
Eric Welsby
Advocacy Organizer (he/him)
Before formally joining DDP, Eric was contracted as one of the co-authors for The A to Z of Effective, Inclusive Campaigns, a campaign guide published by DDP in the Summer of 2022. His time as a Field Organizer and Zone Director for the Michigan AFL-CIO, along with his extensive experience as a political campaign consultant, helped round out the diverse experiences needed to create the guide.
Eric earned his bachelor's degree in 2006 from Central Michigan University. He has also completed a Labor Leader Development Certificate from Wayne State University and a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida.
In his free time, Eric volunteers as a board member for the Eagle Scout Alumni of Michigan and has been recognized as a James E West Fellow for his support of the Boy Scouts of America. The Michigan Crossroads Council recognized him as their 2023 Alumni of the Year. Eric lives with his partner, Rebecca, and their dog, Willow.
Image Description: A circular headshot of a smiling, middle-aged, light-skinned man with rectangular glasses. He has dark brown, short, parted hair and a short-trimmed beard and mustache. He is wearing a white dress shirt, blue sportcoat and a blue, red and white checkered tie.
Work With Us
JOB POSTINGS: None at this time
Questions? Reach out at Info@DetroitDisabilityPower.org