Mad Thinking is an initiative dedicated to creating spaces, tools, and opportunities to explore key questions about power, leadership, organisational strength, and solidarity, with the aim of building stronger, sustainable, and inclusive disability movements. We strive to move beyond single-issue organising, connecting disability activism with other social justice movements, including feminism, queer organising, climate justice, and anti-authoritarian efforts.

As Mad people, we are committed to leadership grounded in lived experience. We strive to spark ideas and energy to challenge the status quo, and to transform, democratise, and revitalise disability organising.

Mad Thinking is especially committed to amplifying marginalised voices within the disability community, particularly those from the global South, those experiencing multiple layers of marginalisation, and emerging activists and advocates.

We are registered in Geneva, Switzerland, as an association.

Our Vision

We envision thriving and robust disability movements, united in solidarity with diverse human rights and social justice movements, where power is built and shared, differences are celebrated, critical thinking is valued, organisations and leaders are accountable, and emerging voices are embraced and amplified.

Our Mission

• To enable and facilitate critical and stimulating conversations about the disability ecosystem, the key bottlenecks and challenges it faces, and possible future directions for disability movements.
• To create spaces that are rooted in continuous learning, active listening, and knowledge sharing between a diverse range of human rights and social justice movement actors.
• To document and disseminate existing strategies used by activists to enable cross-movement solidarities and to create innovative organising and accountability methods.
• To generate and platform knowledges, ideas, tools, and information from and through human rights and justice movements to serve as a resource for the disability community.
• To support emerging disability activists, organisations, and collectives providing them with access to networks and facilitating the democratisation of inside knowledge about the sector.
• To amplify new voices, leaderships, and values-based methods of disability organising. 

Our Values and Principles

• First and foremost, we are led by people with lived experience of disability and madness.
• We are committed to privileging activist knowledges and voices from the global South.
• We are aligned with human rights and social justice principles.
• We are an intersectional, feminist, anti-ableist, anti-racist, trans and queer friendly, justice-based space.
• We are committed to an ethos of a thoughtful, strategic, and sustainable way of working.
• We are committed to inclusive and accommodating ways of working, including providing spaces for strong and/or difficult feelings. However, expressions of violence, hate, bullying, and personal attacks are dissonant with our values.