Atif Choudhury

CEO and Co-founder

Diversity and Ability

Judge

Atif Choudhury is a community advocate challenging perceptions of disability, neurodiversity and homelessness through his work as co-founder and CEO of Diversity and Ability (D&A). His work aims to reduce social, educational and digital exclusion among disabled, neurodiverse and homeless individuals. Atif has supported over 100,000 people and over 200 organisations through his work.

He has worked on numerous high-profile grassroots social development projects across the UK, the Middle East and Asia. In addition to his role at D&A, Atif has served as a trustee for Disability Rights UK, is a member of the advisory board for Neurodiversity in Business and Co-founded the Fairtrade Palestinian olive oil cooperative Zaytoun CiC.

Atif is an advisor to the WHO Rapid Assistive Technologies board and active in disability policy work with global partners and international organisations. In the UK, his work to strengthen participation and tackle disabling poverty has fostered partnerships with homelessness NGOs including Citizens Online, St Mungo’s and Crisis, as well as the Government’s Tackling Loneliness Network through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Atif’s own lived experience has committed him to creating a world where psychological safety is taken seriously, lived experience is centred, and disabling barriers are dismantled. He delivers workshops and talks at events and conferences across the globe, sharing the urgency of establishing intersectionality inclusive environments, and is recognised as a change-maker in mental health and global disability justice.

“If it’s not intersectional in its understanding of the barriers people face, how can it be relevant in its understanding of the barriers people face? It’s time to end the siloed approaches and conversations, with mental health in one corner, poverty in another, disability in another. For me, and for Diversity and Ability, you can’t separate them. They are disabling barriers and it’s disablement we’re fighting here- it’s participation we’re building here!”

areas of expertise

Business, Disability Advocacy, Education, Employment, Equality

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