Disabilities council names Tiava To’omata ‘Advocate of the Year’

The CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities and its disability networka partners have named Tiava To’omata the 2022 Advocate of the Year.

During the 2022 Developmental Disabilities and Employment Awareness month proclamation and recognition ceremony last Tuesday, To’omata, a program aide at the Northern Marianas Protection and Advocacy Systems Inc., was awarded the Advocate of the Year plaque in recognition of the work she’s done in her field.

Aside from To’omata, the CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities also named Nora Aquino Tinian an Advocate of the Year.

As a program aide at NMPASI, To’omata provides support to advocates who deal with individuals with disabilities who complain of being discriminated against, or who feel like their rights have been violated. To’omata is in charge of looking into these claims.

“We investigate and we seek justice for them. At the end of the day, my goal is to help our disability community in any way I can. And that right now is what I’m doing and I feel most comfortable in,” she said.

To’omata started her career working with the disabilities community over a year ago. She started at the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation where she first served as an employment specialist. There, To’omata said here role was to place individuals with disabilities in different workforces in either the government or private sector.

Before working as an employment specialist, To’omata also spent some time as a planner with the OVR where she met with policy makers to suggest ways to make workforces more accessible to individuals with disabilities.

To’omata said her inspiration to pursue this career path is her sister who is also a person with disabilities.

“Personally, a lot of my family members have been people with disabilities and I’ve taken care of a lot of them, my younger sister especially. It has been an inspiration to me to help her out. Now, it’s a career path that I’ve been blessed to follow. I guess the situation surrounding me inspired me to be someone who could help and do more so this is how I do more,” she said.

To’omata said her goal is to give individuals with disabilities the opportunity to show that they are more than their disability. “I believe that what we can all do to help support is to provide people with disabilities an opportunity to show that they are not just disabled, that they have abilities and these abilities can impact our community in ways that we never can even imagine,” she said.