Person of the Year: Greg Borja

With a passion to be a voice for those discriminated against, Greg Borja has devoted his entire life to advocating for individuals with disabilities, which is why he has been chosen as Saipan Tribune‘s 2023 Person of the Year.

Borja, who is the executive director of the Northern Marianas Protection and Advocacy Systems, Inc., has poured over 20 years of his life into advocating for individuals with disabilities, which all got started because of his love for his family.

“I got into NMPASI primarily because I have family members with different types of disabilities. I have a son who grew up with a vision impairment, I have an uncle that I grew up with that has a mental illness. So being part of NMPASI is just my way of working with people [with disabilities] and to show the community that there is nothing wrong with having a disability. You can go through life with the proper support and encouragement. Anyone can do what they want to do, and they should not be held back by a disability,” he said.

Borja started off as an outreach specialist at NMPASI in 2002 and that set the trajectory for his nearly lifelong career of working with persons with disabilities, but it was his passion to be a voice for the vulnerable that eventually placed him at the helm of NMPASI nearly two years ago.

As an outreach specialist for NMPASI, he got his feet wet by giving presentations about issues that surround people with disabilities in the community. That was soon followed by direct work with clients, particularly people from Tinian and Rota, because those communities are traditionally underserved.

“We wanted to make sure that our services were readily available there also because everything that we get here on Saipan should go out to Tinian and Rota as well,” he said.

Borja was immersed in that position for about 19 years.

What kept you going all these years?

Ultimately, what spurs Borja’s passion is seeing the smile on a person’s face when they’re able to accomplish something or they get something they are entitled to but were denied just because they are different.

“It’s really the joy I get when I help someone, especially someone who has been discriminated against because of a disability, or being the voice for someone who doesn’t know how to speak or ask an employer for accommodation to help them do better at their job. They come to NMPASI just because they need help,” he said. “I also like seeing barriers removed so that more people have access within our community, even if it’s just adding a ramp to a restaurant, or making the aisles larger at a store so people who use wheelchairs and walkers can get around more freely and be more independent in what they’re doing.”

He acknowledged that everyone at NMPASI is an advocate. “We’re representatives, supporters, helpers and that’s what we do,” he said.

Challenges

Some of the challenges Borja has faced in the last 20 years are what he calls “teaching an old dog new tricks.” That largely involves changing the minds of people in the community to be more accepting and inclusive of people with disabilities.

“It can be frustrating when people don’t think that people with disabilities have equal right to places. Changing these mindsets are a challenge. But again, we’ve had instances where someone who doesn’t believe that blue parking spaces should strictly be for people with disabilities, yet they now are people with disabilities who need those spaces, and they now see the importance of those and why others shouldn’t park in them,” he said.

Another challenge is helping families truly accept family members who have a disability.

“We do see families who may be embarrassed or ashamed that they have a person with a disability in their family and they don’t bring them out in public. We need to break down that barrier and be accepting of your family. That’s why we host these awareness months, so we become more accepting of people with disabilities and accept them as equal members of our community,” he said.

Community outreach

During his tenure, Borja has helped NMPASI implement a number of community outreach programs, among them the recently established Disabilities Sports Festival.

“One of the coolest outreach efforts that we do in collaboration with our Disabilities Network Partners, which includes like 10 other agencies, is hosting the Disabilities Sports Festival. That’s an opportunity for people with disabilities to participate in and socialize with others and get an opportunity to play sports that they may not be able to do out in the community or at school because maybe their physical disability doesn’t allow them to join a school team. This festival gives them an opportunity to participate in a sport as much as they would want to,” he said.

Another outreach program NMPASI holds is legal education for individuals with disabilities who may not know what rights they are entitled to. Because NMPASI is a legal agency, they primarily train individuals with disabilities about their rights and protections they have under different laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, among others.

“We let them know what their rights are…but we also try to reach out to our community so that they are aware that there are laws that protect individuals with disabilities,” he said.

NMPASI also conducts educational outreach on laws like parking access and not parking in the blue spaces, which includes the access aisles. Borja said these outreach efforts are targeted mainly at members of the CNMI community.

“Sometimes next to a blue space, there is a striped space that is meant for individuals with disabilities to get down safely without having to be pinned up against another vehicle. Unfortunately, we get people who park on those and in the blue spaces, they block the access aisles. So just letting the community know that there are laws like that out there. And for some people, it educates them enough so they can help a family member or themselves because they were unaware of those kinds of laws,” he said.

Anti-bullying comics

NMPASI also had an anti-bullying campaign in 2016 to educate students about their peers who have disabilities. NMPASI worked with students from Marianas High School on creating an anti-bullying comic book, with funding from the CNMI Humanities Council. They also included tips from the stopbullying.org website about how to prevent bullying.

“We got students to write and illustrate four short stories about what it’s like for a person with disabilities who might experience bullying and what people can do to prevent that bullying from happening. …It was well received. We made about 1,000 copies of that comic, and it was distributed primarily at MHS,” he said.

If permitted to do so again, Borja would like to launch another project similar to the anti-bullying comics.

“It would be nice to do that project again moving forward because that entailed us going into the school and talking to students about what disabilities are and making them aware of bullying. It’s also nice because students sometimes would rather read a comic book than a book. I guess our next step would be to make a cool video or something like that highlighting some of those scenarios,” he said.

Relocation

In the past 20 years, NMPASI has relocated a few times to accommodate the growing population of individuals who seek NMPASI’s help, the most recent of which was back on Oct. 1 when they moved to Room 505 of the Marianas Business Plaza.

“We wanted a location with ample parking that was accessible to our community. We were at our old location at Chalan Lau Lau for about 14 years before we moved to Gualo Rai and…that was because we needed to expand our office and we need a little more space. This new space provides us with a little more room for our advocates and for people who come in,” he said.

NMPASI moving to the Marianas Business Plaza also meant helping bring the building up to date in terms of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“…We are working with the owner of the Marianas Business Plaza to improve and create more accessible features throughout the establishment. They have agreed to make the restrooms more accessible to people who use wheelchairs, put up appropriate signage on every floor, and more. Those are the things we are working on with the building owner. This gives the building owner the chance to bring their building up to date,” he said.

Since 2012, the ADA requires businesses that go through renovations or are newly constructed to comply with ADA requirements.

“Fortunately, the building owner is willing to work with us to ensure that he has a place that is accessible to people with disabilities and to the rest of our community,” Borja said.

NMPASI’s goals

With the year coming to an end, Borja said NMPASI looks forward to working on its goals for another 30 years: To provide representation to individuals with disabilities who have had their rights violated and to educate people with disabilities to be self-advocates and to educate the community on issues surrounding people with disabilities.

“We look forward to pushing forward with those two goals for another 30 years to make our community better and barrier-free for people with disabilities. The older we all get we’re going to need these accommodations and that accessibility as our bodies break down and we start having those mobility limitations. So, this is just something to look forward to—making our community a better place to live in in the future,” Borja said.