hugheswf

If you want to PM me your research idea, I'm happy to you my thoughts on it. Is your research going to focus on civic engagement with disabled people or was your host country engagement going to be that?

I just want to say that my school had about 32 semifinalists this year and we only had about 6 people get the grant. Other years, we'd have 20 semifinalists and 14 receive offers. This is all to say that it is a very weird selection process and so your school not getting a research grant may have nothing to do with the FPA. I work in my school's scholarship office and I cannot tell you how many students do not listen to solid advice or just can't seem to incorporate it the right way.
If you don't mind me asking, what country are you going to? Certain countries may view it as a political issue and others may not. It will also depend on how you word it and if you can find an already established organization to volunteer at, that certainly helps, especially if you are in contact with them. 

I would hope that the US Fulbright reviewers would not care too much about the politics, even if they are critical of the US (hopefully that won't change in Trump's America), but some in-country reviewers might be sensitive about certain topics and you should be careful about that (for instance, in my statement for China, I changed the wording about the situation in Xinjiang from "colonial," to "complicated'). In general though, I would not change the focus of your project because of political concerns. Just maybe be a bit strategic about how you frame it. Haha also yeah, it does seem like your advisor might not know everything.