Bronwyn Boudicca (She/Her)
Founding Member, Canada Disability United
Bronwyn Boudicca is a vibrant, thoughtful young woman whose life has been shaped by both significant neurodevelopmental challenges and a deep, unmistakable sense of self. She has a strong moral compass, a calm clarity about right and wrong, and a gentle way of correcting people that can disarm a room.
Bronwyn communicates her values through action: kindness, fairness, and loyalty. She brings a grounded, human perspective to CDU’s mission—reminding the movement that policies aren’t abstract ideas; they are the texture of everyday life for disabled people and their families.
She loves her routines, her quiet spaces, and—above all—her huge Rhodesian Ridgeback, who is her closest companion and an essential part of her daily well-being. Bronwyn knows what environments work for her and what environments don’t, and she has spent her life pushing through systems that were rarely designed with her in mind.
At CDU, Bronwyn represents what this movement is fundamentally about: not theory, not bureaucracy, but real people whose lives deserve stability, inclusion, respect, and community. Her presence is a reminder to keep the work honest, accessible, and deeply rooted in lived experience
Cherise Craney (She/Her)
Founder, Canada Disability United
Cherise Craney is a lifelong disability rights advocate, caregiver, and community organizer with more than 26 years of lived experience supporting her adult daughter, Bronwyn, who has an intellectual and developmental disability. A published writer and policy thinker, she brings a rare blend of personal insight, academic training, and unapologetic determination to her work for disability justice in Canada. She also has dysthymia.
Cherise holds a BA in English Literature from UBC, a BSW from the University of Victoria, and an MA in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities—graduating with Distinction—from the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent, where she was awarded the School of Psychology’s Outstanding Effort Award. Her research focuses on social inclusion, belonging, and the deep structural gaps that families and disabled people navigate every day.
As a former long-time co-op board director, Cherise has spent 15 years elbows-deep in governance, crisis management, and housing policy. Those years shaped her understanding of how systems actually function—not in theory, but in the gritty, lived realities of tenants, families, and disabled people who are too often unheard.
Cherise founded Canada Disability United (CDU) with a simple, stubborn conviction: that people with disabilities and the unpaid caregivers who support them deserve real political power. Not symbolic consultation. Not “advisory” roles that go nowhere. Actual power. CDU is the beginning of a unified disability movement—one that crosses diagnostic categories, pushes back against austerity, and insists on rights, dignity, and material change.When she’s not writing or organizing, Cherise can be found raising her daughter, wrangling her beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback, and juggling far too many creative projects. She is guided, always, by the Stoic questions: Is it right? Is it kind? And is it necessary?
Adrian Estergaard (He/Him)
Member, Canada Disability United
Adrian has been an enthusiastic volunteer and project coordinator his whole life and has over 26 years experience working to create communities in the GVRD. He supports his adult daughter with her physical and mental disabilities and provides her with opportunities to overcome social challenges. As a web developer and technical professional as well as an award-winning writer and former journalist, Adrian brings a diverse range of skills and experiences to help tackle the difficulties of disability justice in Canada. He also has Type I Diabetes and manages a stress-induced anxiety condition.
Heather (She/Her)
Member, Canada Disability United
TBD