COVID Safe Campus is a nationwide group of disabled academics advocating for COVID safety and disability inclusion in higher education. Founded January 2022, CSC has led initiatives focused on community support, advocacy & outreach, and research for social action. We create resources for direct use by disabled academics most impacted by COVID policies and provide online community to build solidarity and organizing power alongside peer support. In the past year our work has reached over 1 million views on social media, earned media coverage in Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and been presented to the APHA Annual Meeting.

The Campus Ambassador Program:
In January 2023 we launched our Campus Ambassador Program to support disabled student-led COVID safety and disability advocacy initiatives. CSC will provide student ambassadors with resources to foster community care, effective peer health education, and disability-led advocacy. We have 16,800 donated high-filtration masks and need funding to help ship them to our 1st cohort of ambassadors to distribute on their campus.

Why is the program needed?
-Insufficient COVID mitigation and exclusionary policies disproportionately threaten marginalized students’ health and access to education
-Disabled students are often denied support needed to access higher ed; support for campus advocacy is essential to social, educational, and vocational inclusion
-In absence of strong public health policy, information and resources are necessary for community care

Program goals:
-Support student leadership and foster knowledge on Disability Justice
-Provide opportunities to connect advocacy on national, local, and cross-campus levels
-Supply students with information & resources to increase protection from COVID and promote community care

The program offers:
-Support with community organizing, educational info, and advocacy strategies
-Community building
-Mutual aid & health education resources
-Advocacy training

What our grantee is saying: “COVID Safe Campus is so grateful to receive this award from Awesome Disability. The COVID-19 pandemic is still a serious crisis and disabled students are disproportionately impacted by insufficient protection from it. This grant funding will help us ship out thousands of masks to students across the United States this month and support our first cohort of Campus Ambassadors as they start up campus mutual aid initiatives promoting COVID safety. Thank you Awesome Disability and its trustees for investing in disabled-led community care and public health, it means so much to us!”

What our trustees are saying: "I voted for this project because it's clearer than ever that mutual aid will be what keeps us safe."