Building inclusive communities through advocacy, education, accessibility, and community engagement.
HIGSI Disability Network is a disability-led nonprofit organization founded by persons with disabilities who bring lived experience, resilience, leadership, and firsthand knowledge of the barriers faced by people with disabilities — committed to the full inclusion, participation, and empowerment of newcomers, refugees, and members of the Somali community in Ontario.
Disability does not define a person’s abilities, potential, or value.
HIGSI recognizes that many individuals with disabilities from refugee and immigrant backgrounds continue to face significant cultural, social, and systemic barriers. Many have experienced stigma, discrimination, exclusion, and limited access to disability rights, services, and opportunities in their countries of origin. As a result, some continue to experience isolation, reduced community participation, and challenges to their overall well-being even after settling in Canada.
The organization is guided by the principles of accessibility, inclusion, equity, dignity, independence, and equal opportunity reflected in Ontario’s disability rights framework, including the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. HIGSI works to increase awareness of these rights and support persons with disabilities in understanding and exercising their rights within their communities and broader society.
Through advocacy, education, awareness initiatives, capacity-building programs, and community engagement, the organization challenges misconceptions about disability and promotes a strengths-based understanding that recognizes the talents, leadership, and contributions of persons with disabilities. HIGSI’s purpose is to support newcomers, refugees, and other persons with disabilities by providing disability rights education, awareness campaigns, skills-development training, leadership opportunities, networking events, mentorship programs, and inclusive recreational, cultural, and community activities — designed to increase confidence, strengthen community connections, improve mental well-being, reduce social isolation, and enhance access to opportunities.
The organization collaborates with community organizations, service providers, governments, and other stakeholders to identify and remove cultural, social, attitudinal, and systemic barriers that limit full participation and inclusion. HIGSI advocates for accessible services, equitable opportunities, and meaningful representation of persons with disabilities in community life and decision-making processes.
Through its work, HIGSI Disability Network strives to build communities where persons with disabilities are respected, valued, empowered, and able to participate fully and equally in all aspects of society — guided by the principle that disability is not inability, and that every individual has the right and capacity to contribute, lead, and thrive when provided with equal opportunities, appropriate supports, and an inclusive environment.
