The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, in the College of Education, has been awarded a grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program. The institute’s Visionary Voices program was one of only six programs in the Philadelphia area to receive a 2012 grant.

The $75,000 planning project explores the potential of public performance to both engage the larger community in disability centered discourse and to expand on pre-existing knowledge regarding the intellectual disability experience, including its impact on friends and families.

Partnering with theater director David Bradley, who co-directed the National Constitution Center’s exhibition/theatrical production Fighting for Democracy, the institute’s performance will revolve around oral interviews Visionary Voices gathered over the past year. The interviews focus on individuals who have played a significant role in Pennsylvania’s Intellectual Disabilities Movement, while also providing primary source material for a public performance dramatizing the stories of Pennsylvanians — especially mothers — who became "accidental warriors" in the intellectual disability rights movement.

Other programs to receive 2012 grants include The Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, The Legacy Center at Drexel University’s College of Medicine, the Scribe Video Center, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project.