Actor/Model and Deaf Activist Nyle DiMarco Joins in Launch of Historic "Hollywood Toolkit" to Help Industry Achieve Goals of Equitable Hiring & Authentic Representation of Disabilities #InclusionRider

LOS ANGELES, March 19, 2018 (Newswire.com) - The Hollywood Disability Toolkit, a project of RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization that fights stigma and advances opportunities for people with disabilities, announces a new partnership between RespectAbility and Hollywood, Health & Society, a project of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center to educate the movie/TV industry on how to ensure people with disabilities are included on both sides of the camera in the stories that Hollywood tells. 

What: Official Unveiling of the Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit

Where: Bunim/Murray Productions studio
1015 Grandview Avenue
Glendale, CA 91201 

Who: Nyle DiMarco, actor, model and activist, and the first Deaf person to win America's Next Top Model and Dancing With The Stars

Jonathan Murray, reality TV pioneer, executive producer of Born This Way, Project Runway and Autism: The Musical

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, President, RespectAbility

Kate Folb, Director, Hollywood, Health & Society

Why: With Hollywood striving to boost diversity and inclusion, one group is consistently overlooked – people with disabilities. One in five Americans has a disability but is represented by fewer than 2 percent of TV and movie characters. In recent years none of the characters with disabilities in leading films were from an underrepresented group or the LGBTQ community, while non-disabled actors portray 95 percent of characters with disabilities on television. 

When: Tuesday, March 20, 2018
8:30 a.m. Breakfast begins
8:50 a.m. Program begins 

NOTE: Breakfast will be served.

RespectAbility (www.respectability.org) is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities.

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MEDIA CONTACT:
Nick Bhatt, Tower26
[email protected]

Source: RespectAbility