On March 6, 2025, Alice Bruil and Alexandra Crooks took the stage at the United Nations office in Vienna for the Zero Project Conference 2025. As part of a fireside chat called “Young Professionals for a Disability-Aware Future,” Bruil and Crooks — international studies and public health-global health majors, respectively — shared insights from their year-long research project with the Jackson School’s Disability Inclusive Development Initiative (DIDI). Their work focused on examining the asylum systems of five different countries — Bangladesh, Colombia, Germany, Uganda, and the United States — and investigating the challenges faced by refugees with disabilities.
According to Crooks, DIDI’s research revealed a consistent theme: refugees with disabilities across all five countries faced exclusion, discrimination, and a severe lack of support. Despite the varying legal frameworks in each country, the broader experience for disabled refugees was one of marginalization.
“Across all countries studied, migrants with disabilities remain largely unseen and unaccounted for in asylum systems,” Crooks said, adding that “One of the most significant realizations from this project is how deeply societal and physical structures are designed with able-bodied individuals in mind. As a result, persons with disabilities are often exposed to barriers that were never considered in the initial design infrastructure systems.”
Bruil, who focused specifically on Uganda in her portion of the research, shared a similar finding. Although Uganda is often recognized as having one of the world’s most progressive legal frameworks for disability rights, Bruil’s research uncovered a significant gap between policy and practice.
“Despite the robust legal frameworks pertaining to persons with disabilities in Uganda, a main barrier to the implementation of these laws lies within the issue of collecting accurate and specific data,” Bruil said. “This challenge reinforced the importance of this research, not only to the larger community of people with disabilities, but also to governments who lack the resources or will to carry out large-scale inclusive research projects.”
United Nations guest badges for Alexandra Crooks and Alice Bruil.
Throughout their presentation, Bruil and Crooks emphasized the need to center human experience in research, arguing that the voices of disabled refugees are crucial to shaping inclusive policies.
“Getting to know the communities we studied based on stories retold by NGO representatives on the ground allowed us to reach deeper insights in our research,” Crooks said. “This was a key phase of the process which allowed us to apply a holistic approach to the report.”
For Bruil and Crooks, speaking at the Zero Project Conference affirmed their commitment to pursuing careers in disability studies after graduation.
“I feel as though my involvement with the initiative has allowed me to contribute to a global movement of inclusion which will hopefully continue to grow,” Bruil said. “No other university has a program like DIDI, and its unique design and hands-on approach offers undergraduates a unique experience typically reserved for graduate students.”
