Sara Minkara

  • Empowerment Through Integration

  • 2015 Global Fellow

Sara Minkara
  • Empowerment Through Integration

  • 2015 Global Fellow

bold idea

Foster social awareness and support for disability rights of visually impaired youth by providing inclusive educational and recreational programs that encourage students to explore and pursue career goals.

organization overview

Empowerment through Integration (ETI) strives to empower blind youth with the necessary life skills and emotional support to become authors of their own futures and change makers in their societies. ETI provides the emotional support necessary to bring out the potential of visually impaired youth, who are encouraged to seek a better life and aspired to greater careers. ETI achieves this by running a summer camp and facilitating a social project that teaches the participating children to fight for their rights of inclusion. ETI is reconstructing the narrative surrounding the disabled community and their contributions to society.

Personal Bio

Sara Minkara, founder and chief executive officer of Empowerment through Integration (ETI), has focused her life’s work on disability rights and integration of the disabled. In 2015, Sara was a Visiting Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University and the Operations Manager at the Disability Rights Fund. At age seven, she lost her vision; however, despite that deeply frightening experience, Sara knew that all of life’s opportunities could still be afforded to her. The U.S. public education system paired with the love and tenacity of her family enabled her to attend Wellesley College and Harvard University. Trips to Lebanon painted a very different reality. Lebanon’s culture often fails to recognize the potential and human rights of the blind. This inspired her to create Camp Rafiqi, which later evolved into ETI. Sara has also received the Clinton Foundation, Outstanding Commitment Award, Davis Peace Project Award, Emily Bultch Peace and Justice Award, MIT IDEAS Award, and a finalist for the Harvard President’s Challenge Award.

  • Organization/Fellow Location ?

    Our most recent information as to where the Fellow primarily resides.

    Hingham, United States

  • Impact Location ?

    Countries or continents that were the primary focus of this Fellow’s work at the time of their Fellowship.

  • Organization Structure ?

    An organization can be structured as a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid (a structure that incorporates both nonprofit and for-profit elements).

    Nonprofit

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