WHEN I WAS 17 I was told that I was legally blind and I had been since birth. I was born with ocular albinism, but my parents chose not to tell me. They believed that it would result in myself and others placing limits on what I could achieve.

For ten years after finding out, I continued to hide my disability, going on to graduate and join an international consultancy firm. As the stress of keeping it under wraps grew, my eyesight deteriorated even further, until the point that my eyes temporarily significantly deteriorated. I was unceremoniously kicked out of the disability closet. I had to come clean to my employer and to myself.

Several months after I had been outed I found myself in southern India face to face with my one and only blind date – Kanchi the elephant. Kanchi and I would travel together for months as I fulfilled a childhood dream to become Mowgli from the Jungle book and raise funds for charity. It was while on this trip that I began to reflect on why I had hidden my disability for so long, why I had been ashamed of admitting it and what I would do next.

I realised that that no one should have to hide who they are and that having a disability didn’t define who I was. I wanted to do something about it, so when I returned home I handed in my notice and started on a new adventure.

Catalyst for change

Having worked in the business field, it was natural that I looked to this for a solution. I knew business held the key to changing perceptions of disability. Almost everything we do is influenced by business: the jobs we work in, the restaurants we eat in, the clothes we wear – all of them require us to engage with business at some level. Business is the greatest catalyst for change and if we change the way business thinks and behaves around disability then society will naturally follow.

This was the basis for Kanchi, the not-for-profit organisation which I established. Its aim was and still is to change attitudes and behaviours towards disability through working with business leaders.

I am determined that disability is no longer seen as a ‘charity’ issue by businesses. Globally there are 1 billion people with disabilities. That’s one in seven, a market the size of China. People with disabilities have a spending power of €3 billion per annum in Ireland alone and $9trillion globally. Employers are realising that in order to ensure they have the best person in each role they must recruit in a way that doesn’t discriminate against people with disabilities and that they can’t afford to lose talented employees who have existing or acquired disabilities.

The new green

I believe that disability is ‘the new green’. When the ‘green’ movement began it wasn’t taken seriously by businesses, but gradually they realised that there were benefits to be had. Their employees and customers wanted businesses to reflect their own values around the green agenda; recycling and reducing waste could save businesses money; and in a crowded market, embracing ‘green’ could give them a competitive edge. As more and more businesses got on board, a tipping point was reached: it was no longer a case of ‘if’ you were addressing the green agenda but ‘how’ you were addressing it.

Disability is ‘the new green’, because businesses are now starting to recognise that they need to pro-actively look at disability and how they include people with disabilities as customers and as employees. Businesses are realising the value of engaging with disability and the point will come when every business is working inclusively and no longer sticking their heads in the sand in the hopes that disability might somehow go away.

I have a disability, but it doesn’t define me. I want every person to be able to go into a shop and know that they will be able to make a purchase without being discriminated against. I want businesses to make it easy for us to be their customers. I want everyone to be able to walk into a building without worrying about walking into a glass wall that hasn’t been marked or tripping down some steps that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. I want each of us to be able to apply for a job and know that they will be interested in whether we have the skills and experience to carry out the role, not pre-occupied with how we can read a computer screen.

Lazy stereotyping

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Kanchi are marking it with the publication of a list of 100 companies which have signed up to change one thing to become more inclusive of people with disabilities. They are demonstrating that inclusive business makes sense.

There is no longer a place for discrimination in our society. We need to get away from lazy stereotyping and medical views of disability. Our populations are growing and ageing, people are living longer, society and business can no longer afford to ignore this issue
Our world is weakened by inequality and each of us has a role to play in eradicating this. Everybody has the right to realise their dreams and realise their potential and it is time that this ‘everybody’ included people with disabilities.

Caroline Casey is founder of the not-for-profit organisation Kanchi and its pioneering social franchise The Ability Awards. Information on the Kanchi 100 initiative can be found here.