South SFV Today

When Tilly Griffiths was a child, she was determined that her future job would have nothing to do with disability. “I wanted to prove that I was more than that,” she says. Diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at age one, she describes her muscles as about as strong as a newborn’s, and she has used a wheelchair since toddlerhood.

Griffiths, ’22, MA ’24, was raised in her parents’ bed-and-breakfast in rural England but grew up dreaming of going to college in the United States, living the type of hyper-social life she saw in movies like Legally Blonde. “I’d tell people what I wanted to do, and I could see they didn’t believe me,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’d be nice.’” When she was accepted to Stanford, Griffiths became the first student to be granted fully funded full-time personal care attendants by England’s National Health Service while attending a four-year university abroad.

As an undergraduate double majoring in political science and communication, she wrote opinion columns for the Stanford Daily spotlighting the fine line between independence and isolation and the barriers posed by limited accessible transportation. She also served as the ASSU’s director of disability advocacy and co-founded a community group now part of the Stanford Disability Alliance. After a yearlong corporate social responsibility internship at the Walt Disney Company, Griffiths returned to campus to earn a master’s in journalism. She discovered that the career focus she’d once sought to avoid might be a perfect fit. “There are a lot of interesting things, a lot of troubling things, a lot of exciting things that happen in the world of disability that don’t get reported on,” she says. “I have the insight and the access and the knowledge of that world to be able to tell a story in what I feel is the right way.”

“Writing was a form of advocacy for me. There’s a lot that people with disabilities experience that isn’t so empowering. I think it’s important to find a way to share that with your own voice.”

Griffiths spent her childhood at her family’s bed-and-breakfast. Her parents, Jackie and Rolf, and sister Candice supported her in her charity work.

“My chair is a part of me. I want it to be the best that it can be and make me feel good. A lot of people comment on the bling on my chair. I’m like, people are going to see it, so I might as well make it something positive that they can talk about.

“I am very focused on my appearance—my hair, my makeup, my outfit—because I feel like they’re things that are within my control. But things that are outside of my control—there’s a lot about my body and the way I show up that I can’t change—I’m very at peace with those things. They don’t really occupy any space in my mind.

“I’ve always loved the world of media. I won a Pride of Britain award [for fund-raising] when I was 8, and around that there was a lot of media coverage including live television appearances. Having received support from charities early on inspired me; I started out doing little speeches about what my chair meant and what I was able to do because of it."

“I genuinely wanted to help other kids get these chairs.

“I was excited about getting the master’s in journalism because storytelling has been such an important part of my life but also because honing data skills is crucial too—to translate numbers into stories illustrating impacts is invaluable."

“My master’s thesis focuses on people with disabilities becoming parents—how they navigate pregnancy as well as parenthood—and raising children while managing different disabilities.”

Kali Shiloh is a staff writer at Stanford.

Email: kshiloh@stanford.edu

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