We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anastasia Ford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Anastasia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

Disability rights and human rights are vital for everyone. Statistically, 1 in 4 individuals have a disability already, whether is from birth or genetics, and some ethnic groups are more prone to a particular medical condition OR some individuals will acquire one in life due to several factors, such as age, or an untimely accident. However, Black communities are still left with the stigma and in some cases, the fight to be seen as a human before their disability. It is a disproportionate amount of unequal access, treatment, and resources. I want to bridge the gap between meaningful inclusion, access to resources, and equal treatment in our melanated communities. I aim to show individuals how to get what they need. You may have to work harder to attain it, but I will show you how to get there with the tools provided and my personal experience as a peer. From this need, Neurodiversity Among Us (NDAU) was born. I am the creator and lead event organizer for NDAU brought by Akoma Cares in partnership with leading neurodevelopment research centers, the Early Social Development Lab at UofSC, and, most recently, Carolina Autism Neurodevelopment (CAN) Research Center at UofSC. NDAU is an annual event to celebrate neurodiverse minds, reshaping the views of disabilities and mental development, and removing the stigma of disabilities within Black communities. In 2026, we will be approaching our fourth year, and it is exciting! The people have spoken and want it back, so we will give the people what they want! Thanks to the continuous work of my team, event participants, and public support, we can deliver to an underserved community that is often unseen, unheard, and misunderstood and provide them with the tools necessary to advocate for oneself and loved ones.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello!

My name is Anastasia Ingrid Ford. I am a mother, disability advocate, and human rights activist. My husband and I share three awesome sons and a lovable Weimaraner girl dog who we affectionately call “our daughter.” Never had I imagined that I would be heavily involved in disability and human rights. In my early years, I said that I would be a fashion designer and own my own brand. I would sketch and produce all the planning materials necessary to build a fashion empire. Since I was 16, I have worked in retail and eventually climbed the ladder to management. Fast forward to 2014, and I gave birth to our first son, Donovan. Life has completely changed since then, and so have my goals and mission. At the age of 3, he was officially diagnosed with Autism Spectrum, and the fashion journey took a back seat. Did it have to? No. But the trajectory of life’s journey called me to another direction-advocacy and activism. I had not looked back, and the rest is ongoing history as we speak.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My resilience and toughness are key to what I do. Advocacy and activism require a lot of grit and getting your hands dirty. It is not a glamorous job. Some people foolishly overlook it because it is not a so-called “brand” appeal, like fashion is, or it is not considered entrepreneurial. It is quite the opposite. It takes guts to stand up for something you believe in and make the world a better place because the calling is higher than yourself. You are contributing and changing the way society views what is considered “less than” or “unimportant.” My epiphany came to me in 2019 when I took my children to a local library’s storytime and Donovan was unequally treated and misunderstood. His behavior did not fit in the mold of “normal” children, and I could feel the resistant energy of the staff present. I said to myself, I can be angry about it and never come back, OR I can be angry and do something about it. I decided the latter. Immediately afterwards, I spoke with the storytime presenter about the situation and scheduled a meeting with the Director of Library Experience. Before the meeting, (I recall that I had at least a month to prepare before the date scheduled), I decided to conduct an online survey from parents and caregivers with disabled children and received immense feedback on the need for library staff to be more inclusive to ALL children of different abilities and a call to knowledge on interacting and recognizing various behaviors and accommodations. Not only did I have support from members of the community, but my son’s Early Interventionist and a Children’s Librarian from another branch attended the meeting with me- full throttle, which I will eternally be grateful for! From that point on, I knew I had tapped into something that was greater than myself and my son- the duty to speak up on issues that could easily be swept under the rug if left unchecked. To quote the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” I will never be silenced, and I teach my children the same lesson my parents taught me.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Pivoting in life from the fashion and retail world to advocacy and activism was easy and challenging. Not to say that I cannot pursue both, but advocacy and activism alone sparked something else in me. Not that you cannot intertwine fashion and the work that I do together. Many advocacy groups and organizations use fashion to make powerful statements about the unjustness of the world, and that is their wave. However, each advocate and activist does not have to ride identical waves. We all have a variety of ways of getting the job done and measures to achieve it, but our goals and priorities are similar, if not the same.

I pursued my own advocacy and activism group. At one point, I quietly took a break. I became tired, slightly bitter, and restless. I felt no one cared and no one was actively listening. The support I thought I would gain from certain groups and individuals that I thought shared a common goal, did not exist. The human in me wanted to stop, but divine intervention kicked in and sent someone to call me back to my work. And I have been back ever since. Currently, I am a Disability Advocacy Coordinator for Akoma Cares, a 501c3 non-profit serving the African diaspora community by way of providing resources and support along families’ homeschooling and alternative education journey. I am also on the Board of Directors and a committee member of the Minority and Rural Outreach Program (MROP) for Disability Rights of South Carolina, a council member of Family Connections of SC Parent Advisory Council, and a 2025 graduate of Partners and Policymaking in the state of South Carolina. I will continue, as my work is far from completed, as this only marks the beginning.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://akomacares.org
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits

Hippy Mama Vibes Photography
South Carolina Partnership of Disability Organizations
Autism Connect 2025