Diana Samarasan

Diana Samarasan is an independent consultant with expertise in disability rights and inclusion, disability at the intersection with gender, Indigeneity and other identities, philanthropy, and participatory grantmaking at a global level. She is the founder and previous Executive Director of participatory grantmakers, the Disability Rights Fund (DRF) and the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund (DRAF), which are collaborations between donors and global disability activists to support the growth and diversification of disability rights movements across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Diana was one of the first grantmakers to include people with lived experience in decision-making about global grantmaking strategy and funding.

Diana has over two decades of experience in disability, development, and human rights more broadly. Previously, she directed a legal advocacy organization in Budapest, Hungary, which litigates abuses of rights of persons with disabilities who are institutionalized in Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. She also worked with the American Refugee Committee and ran the Russian and Eastern European programs of Doctors of the World, addressing access to reproductive health services, tuberculosis control, and deinstitutionalization.