Nerea Atieno Thigo hails from Kenya, originally from a town called Kisumu but residing in Nairobi. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications and Community Development and a Masters in International Relations. Nerea currently works with CBM as a Program Officer and was previously Communications Officer. She joined CBM during the Horn of Africa Food Crisis where she reported on the crisis by engaging with partners on emergency response mechanisms, training on resilience and documentation of best practice. The communities were quite receptive and proved that they can survive hard times, especially vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities. Working with mainstream emergency response institutions she focused on mainstreaming responses to include persons with disabilities, a process enlightening and providing an array of opportunities to engage at a higher level for influence and accessibility of services. In this position, she engaged with Government, NGOs, academia and different partners in Health, Education and others to help improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities. Joining GDW provides a great opportunity to share some of the stories from programs for shared learning. Working with persons with disabilities, Nerea believes has been quite fulfilling just to be able to see them scale through different barriers that would naturally hinder their participation in various fora. Their resilience, optimism, courage and strong will provides an opportunity for hope of an inclusive world.