I've never known life without disability. Disability is where a physical or mental condition or impairment is combined with physical or social barriers that make it hard for a person to do certain things or interact with the world around them. Disability is very diverse, with a wide range of experiences that can affect a person's ability to see, move, hear, learn, communicate or interact with others.
In my case, my sister Erin is autistic and has intellectual disabilities. She processes the world differently. She enjoys riding her bike, collecting rubber ducks, watching YouTube videos on repeat and spending the money she earns at work. When she's really happy, she squeals and claps her hands.
Though, for many people Erin is different, she is my normal. In my family, we were raised with the core value that different is not less. But it was made clear to me that the rest of the world didn't always share this value. Like, I'll never forget, one time in middle school, my sister's aid had made a video of her learning how to communicate using speech and sign and thriving in an inclusive classroom where she was loved and accepted just for who she is. And I brought it to school, wanting to share, to give my classmates the opportunity to learn more about autism, only to be told by my teacher that the faculty had decided against it to "protect" me from other students inevitably making fun of her.
It was one of many instances that taught me what stigma was. With every rude comment, when Erin would have a sensory meltdown in a public place, with every casual use of the slur retard, by even childhood friends of mine with every judgmental stare, I learned that the rest of the world didn't necessarily see Erin for the full human being that she is.
Now, when I went off to college, I didn't know what role, if any, disability would play in my life outside my family. It wasn't until I studied abroad in China for my International Relations major that my personal background with disability and my career came together. Through a class I was taking on social issues in Beijing, I had the opportunity to visit an autism school there and was introduced to a local disability rights advocacy organization. I ended up interning with them and got completely absorbed into that community. I was finally able to see how my family's struggle was part of something much larger, and the magnitude of what I found actually shocked me.
Over a billion people, an estimated 15 percent of the world's population, have some form of disability. And persons with disabilities as a group worldwide face huge amounts of stigma and disadvantage. Just to use education as an example, of the 240 million children with disabilities in the world, about 50 percent have never been to school. I was appalled that I had been studying global human rights at an Ivy League school, and even though the problem was so unbelievably huge, not once had disability really ever come up. So I decided to pivot, and I've spent the past decade in my career to disability inclusion in international development.
I returned to China on a Fulbright scholarship to do research on education and programs for autistic adolescents and adults. I then went on to do research or work with disability organizations in places like Tanzania, Ireland and South Africa. I now work globally with Special Olympics, using sport as a platform to teach and promote inclusive attitudes. And what I found is that all over the world, even though countries' specific cultural context or systems might be different, the underlying problem of attitude barriers remains the same. And the research backs me up. The second most cited barriers to inclusion, after lack of data, is negative attitudes towards disability.
What people don't realize is that exclusion hurts everyone. The International Labour Organization estimates that disability exclusion costs low- and middle-income countries between three and seven percent of GDP. But the opposite is also true. Inclusion could help everyone. Our research at Special Olympics has found that inclusive sport and youth leadership programming has benefits for youth, both with and without disabilities, especially when it comes to developing key social and emotional skills everyone needs to succeed in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world. And this has held true in countries as different as the United States, China, India, Kenya and Greece.
The good news is there are four things we all can do to make the future more inclusive. Number one, we need to reevaluate our own attitudes towards disability. I still get questions about whether it is "realistic" to include persons with disabilities in international development programs when even the so-called regular people are struggling. There are still too many stereotypes that associate disability with pity, and we're still living with social systems and physical structures that segregate people with disabilities. So fewer people have it as part of their everyday experience, and it still makes them really uncomfortable. We need to re-evaluate these attitudes. Needing accommodation or support does not make a person any less deserving of dignity and respect. This is a matter of justice and equity, not charity.
Second, choose to include. Solving this issue is not just a matter of policy. There are plenty of countries that have disability laws on the books or have signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but there is still a huge gap between what is written in policy and what actually happens in practice. And this comes down to all of us. We can put pressure on governments to make sure that laws are actually implemented. But we can also look at where we have the power to effect change. We should be looking at organizations' diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and see where we can be doing better. Too often we still fall short of recognizing disability as part of human diversity. We would all benefit by not only accommodating but actively supporting and including persons with disabilities in the workplace.
Third, we need to recognize where disability intersects with every issue area. When we talk about gender equity, we need to be inclusive of women with disabilities who are actually more likely to be victims of gender-based violence. When we talk about global health and health systems, we need to be inclusive of persons with disabilities who are more likely to have poor health outcomes, often not because of their actual disability but because of stigma and lack of access to care. Everyone has something they can do to make their work more inclusive. And together, these collective efforts can result in the cultural shift that we need.
Finally, and most importantly, don't just listen to me. Listen to persons with disabilities themselves. All over the world, there are incredible self advocates. Like my friend and colleague Ben, who is both legally blind and has intellectual disability and who successfully advocated to the DC Department of Transportation to get voice and sound added to the crosswalks near our office to make it safe for him and people like him to cross the street going to work. Or Brina from the Philippines, whose parents were told upon her Down syndrome diagnosis that they shouldn't set their expectations too high, but who has become an assistant preschool teacher and a UNESCO champion for inclusion in education. Or Haseeb, who has actually been on a TEDx stage before me to speak out against the stigma he has faced as an autistic young person in Pakistan. And I could go on and on and on with others who have shared their lived experience of disability in books, speeches, blogs, podcasts and social media. When you're looking for ways to make your work more inclusive, seek out the voices of persons with disabilities. Really take the time to listen to what they have to say and follow their lead.
Disability has always been and will always be a part of my life. Erin and I deserve to live in a world where she has more opportunities to be supported and included. Erin, Ben, Brina and Haseeb are only four out of over a billion people who are just trying to find belonging and live their best lives in a world that was not designed for them. Indeed, a world that was designed to hold them back. Not because it had to be that way, but because people built systems around attitudes that other and exclude them. And all of those people have family members like me whose lives are shaped by this issue and communities who are affected, whether they realize it or not.
Disability inclusion is not something nice that we do for those people. It is something critical that needs to come from all of us.
Thank you.
(Applause)
