The morning of 29 November 1997 started off as an ordinary fall Sunday for Tiffany Yu. The then-nine-year-old from Bethesda, Maryland, had no worries other than the inevitable end of a long weekend that included both Thanksgiving and her father’s birthday.
Tiffany’s mother had a business trip that week, so the Yu family went to the airport to drop her off. On the car ride home, Tiffany was in the back seat with her brother, as her sister rode shotgun with her dad at the wheel.
Shortly after the reaching the highway, Yu’s father had a seizure and lost control of the car. The vehicle veered across the road and crashed. Yu’s father passed away in the accident. Yu and her siblings survived but sustained injuries. Tiffany broke several bones and had nerve damage that would limit use of her right arm for the rest of her life.
After a rehabilitation period that included relearning how to write using her left hand, Yu went back to school. “All I wanted to do was to fit in, but I felt so isolated and different because of my disability,” she says. “Anytime anyone would ask me about my arm I would start getting emotional. I wouldn’t let people better understand my story and what happened.”
Fast forward to 2016. Yu, 27, is the director of business development at Revolt TV. She also has a side hustle as the founder of Diversability, an organization that unites and empowers the disability community by hosting curated events.
In just one year, the volunteer-based Diversability has grown to three chapters, in New York, California and Alabama. And Yu, the winner of the Guardian’s My Side Hustle Wins contest, has big plans for taking things to the next level.
“So many people steer away from things because they’re afraid,” says motivational speaker Becky Curran, a panelist at Diversability’s first event. “But Tiffany has been able to immerse herself in this project and has found a way to bring her passion to all of us.”
College club turned full-fledged organization
Diversability began as a club when Yu was an undergraduate at Georgetown in 2009. Her goal was to elevate disability in the diversity conversation on campus. After graduation, she moved to New York City and worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs and as a segment producer at Bloomberg Television. Diversability continued on without her for a few years before dissolving.
In June 2014, Yu accepted a job at Revolt, a music network owned by hip-hop mogul Sean Combs. Her mind wasn’t on disability work until a few months later, when she got an email message from a man who had read an article about her Georgetown club. He shared his story about having a mental handicap and thanked her for helping to raise awareness for people with disabilities. Then a few days later, Yu got a note on Twitter from another stranger who enquired about Diversability.
“I wasn’t really sure why I was getting those messages almost six years after I had started Diversability in college, but I saw it as a sign that maybe there was still a need for the organization,” she says.
Yu brought up the idea of reviving Diversability during a coffee meeting with Dreamers // Doers, a community of female entrepreneurs. The group encouraged her to get started by setting up a website and social media channels. Yu then recruited volunteers to plan a launch event in April 2015. The evening featured a panel discussion with Curran, Ms Wheelchair America 2011 Alexandra McArthur and jazz pianist Matt Savage. Commissioner Victor Calise from the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities also attended.
Diversability’s NYC chapter hosted five more events in 2015, including a screening of Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk, which later won a News & Documentary Emmy award. Chapters formed in Alabama and California, which hosted two events each. The next event is a Twitter chat with mental health activist Dior Vargas on 16 February.
Yu’s goal is to unite the community and celebrate the idea of disability pride. She also wants to engage able-bodied people who are passionate about inclusion. Her dream is for the organization to grow into a decentralized movement of which all people are a part. “My hope is that at one time Diversability was my side hustle, but in the future everyone will be a part of Diversability and will be hustling for it.”
“Tiffany is so hard-working and genuine – it’s a powerful combination,” says Gesche Haas, CEO of Dreamers // Doers. “A lot of it has to do with this shocking and painful event that she had at a young age, and a lot of self-judgment that she had to overcome to get to this stage. She came back like a phoenix rising from the ashes.”
Eighteen years after the car accident, Yu reflects on that fateful day in 1997, being mindful of the strides she has made and the work that’s left to do. “Instead of thinking about [the accident] in terms of loss, which is what I had always done, I now see it as rebirth,” she says. “A rebirth of this new life that isn’t worse – it’s just different.”
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