Introduction

Mayia Warren has been selected to be the 2022 recipient of the IDA’s But You LOOK Good Inspiration Award. She has been chosen based upon her leadership and passion as a disability, albinism and chronic illness advocate. Mayia’s ability to share your own journey through the use of visual and musical storytelling, social media, the spoken word and your Better Not Bitter Podcast has inspired so many people living daily with invisible disabilities, illness and pain around the world.

Mayia Warren’s Acceptance Speech

Hi, my name is Mayia Warren. As it’s been stated, I am an advocate and philanthropreneur and I just wanna extend a heartfelt thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Connell for all that they do with IDA and amplifying the voices of those, like myself, who live with invisible disabilities and sharing their experience as well. I wanna say thank you to my brother, my sister, my support group and community that is behind me and that I get to interact with and they propel me in terms of purpose and being able to share my story, the ups, the downs and we know that there are many lows in this journey of navigating, many times, multiple, invisible conditions.

I also wanna say thank you to God who continues to write my story and uses the pain that I live with daily as a modicum for purpose and impact. I genuinely don’t know how I’m here today, but I think the beauty of navigating life sometimes with different conditions is it provides you with a different perspective.

Redefining Inspiration

When I think of the word inspiration and many times in our community, it has a bad taste in our mouths because of how it’s been manipulated to treat people with disabilities and otherize people with disabilities, but when I think of the root, the genuine term of inspiration, it means to ultimately motivate someone, an action taken, a word being uttered, something that impacts someone so greatly that they internalize that in whatever way that is appropriate to their journey and then it causes them to take action and so to be able to receive the “But You LOOK Good” Inspiration Award, it’s humbling.

Serving Through Every Season

It’s a honor because I myself, living with multiple conditions day-to-day, don’t know what the next moment or the next week or the month will look like, but being able to serve through my gifts, whether I’m bedbound or upright, has been a blessing for me.

So a special thank you to all those involved in making the decision and making this gala happen. Thank you.