Audacity2Speak, Presented by the Arts & Culture Inclusion Council

Join Alicia Hopkins and colleagues as they discuss her upcoming book, Audacity2Speak, available Summer 2024. This event is a platform for advocacy, community engagement, and storytelling.
About Audacity2Speak
Alicia’s book explores her journey of overcoming obstacles, changing perspectives, and becoming an artist, author, and advocate.
Event Highlights:

• Book Insights: Alicia shares experiences and lessons from Audacity2Speak.
• Advocacy Goals: Learn about her advocacy work and goals for impactful change.
• Creative Engagement: See how Alicia uses art and creative thinking to address community issues.
• Networking: Explore opportunities for collaboration in advocacy.

Alicia’s work has been featured across Ohio in various venues. Her dynamic approach empowers individuals to tell their stories, educate others, and raise awareness on important topics. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation about advocacy, art, and storytelling.

About Alicia Hopkins

Alicia Hopkins is a disabled artist, author, and advocate from Ohio. She uses her art in a dynamic way. She advocates for accessibility in the arts, disability rights, and also in independent living. She has committed her life to teaching people how to use art to advocate. She is involved in many advocacy groups on the state and national level for disability rights, mental health, developmental disabilities, and domestic violence. 

Many people know her through her artwork and advocacy around the Ohio Direct Support Crisis. She painted 25 feet of art to tell the stories of people with disabilities, families, and caregivers across Ohio. She has used her art to advocate for funding for home and community-based services and supports for people with disabilities, emergency preparedness planning, and for many disability rights issues.

She met the U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh with her art in October of 2021 while advocating for ARPA Funds in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2022, she was a part of Disabled Women Making History in Art and the Art Possible Ohio Accessible Expressions People’s Choice Award Winner for her first four panels on the Ohio Direct Support Crisis.

In 2022, she launched a project called Creative Changemakers alongside Disability Rights Ohio to help people with disabilities utilize art to tell their stories about what it’s like with and without care and to help assist them to turn their art into postcards for advocacy. In 2023, she launched a postcard project called #DearOhioLegislators to help people with disabilities, families, and caregivers to engage in letter writing to legislators about the Ohio Direct Support Crisis during the HB33 budget bill. 

In 2023, a project that Alicia Hopkins founded, the Accessibility Library, launched in Summit County, Ohio. This project is an initiative to make community events accessible through an accessibility library where organizations and community event organizers share equipment and resources to make arts and cultural events accessible to people with disabilities. 

In 2023, Alicia accepted a two-year appointment for The Link Center National Steering Committee for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health. 

In the past, Alicia has won several awards. She received the John Romer Advocacy Award in 2023 for her artwork and advocacy about the Ohio Direct Support Workforce Crisis and her work as a National Advocate and Steering Committee Member for the Link Center. She was the 2022 People’s Choice Award Winner for Art Possible Ohio AEO Exhibit. She was the 2020 American Royal Spirits High Hostess Ambassador Queen. She was 2018 Ohio Miss Amazing Sr Miss Queen and got 1st runner up at the National Miss Amazing pageant. She won an impact award for a community arts event she created in Northeast Ohio. She was the 2018 Arts Alive Community Outreach Award Recipient and applauded as an Unsung Hero in the Beacon Journal in 2019. Some of her projects include founding the Art Speaks All Abilities Art Expo, Art Speaks Ohio Art Supply Program, the Poetry4All Initiative, and the Art of Christmas. Alicia has a Bachelor of Arts from Malone University. She has written numerous articles on disability rights, arts advocacy, and accessibility. She is the author of three poetry books and a young adult nonfiction book. Additionally, she has been involved with Akron Cultural Plan, and is a former board member for the Center for Applied Drama and Autism and Art Sparks. She enjoys genealogy, writing poetry, dance, and visual arts.

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