United Blind Leaders - forum recap

Speaker 1 00:07 (Program theme)

It's up to you and me to shine a guiding light and lead the way / United by our cause we have power to pursue what we believe / We'll achieve the realisation...

Speaker 2 00:28

Thanks for joining me for this week's New Horizons. I'm John Simpson. This week we're recapping the forum that the new organisation, United Blind Leaders, hosted back in mid -September. Vaughn Bennison hosted the evening, and he set the scene and introduced the organisation and spoke about its inception.

Speaker 3 00:51

Everyone is a leader in their own way and United Blind Leaders seeks to exemplify leadership in all its forms. This group started because of the campaign for Vision Australia to go through a transparent and open process for the appointment of the next CEO. United Blind Leaders is something that has been on the table for quite a long time. My wife and I have had many discussions and I know we've had discussions with lots of other people about the importance of blind people leading blind people, and more broadly, disabled people leading disabled people. I guess you could call this a catalyst, but it's by far not the only thing that United Blind Leaders stands for. 

I have a comment to read you and this comment focuses and highlights the importance of lived experience leadership and why it is so important for blind people to be leading the organisations that are about us... I have a mum, but I do not lead a women's organisation. I have a mate who is Aboriginal, but I am not leading a First Nations group. I have a friend who is Muslim, but I am not a leader in that faith. I have low vision and I want my leader to have lived experience. When I went through my education, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had been adopted by the UN, and I knew that "nothing about us without us" was a new paradigm.

It is time for our disability groups to reflect the new paradigm and lead the way so that true inclusion in society can become a reality. Failing to appoint a leader with a white cane or guide dog is a failure to demonstrate that people with low vision and blindness are worthy of leadership roles.

Speaker 2 02:49

Graeme Innes spoke of the immediate campaign work that United Blind Leaders is undertaking. We then heard from Emma Bennison who extended the horizon and spoke about the longer-term future of United Blind Leaders - and in particular announced some more immediate advocacy work that the organisation will undertake.

Speaker 4 03:13

In 2012, I was a chair of Arts Access Australia, which is an organisation that advocated for people with disability in the arts sector. Now, at that time, our CEO was non-disabled. So very publicly, she made the courageous decision to step aside to make room for a disabled person to lead. It was an act of allyship, but it also exposed the deep-seated biases that exist within our society. Concerns were raised about whether we would even be able to find a disabled person capable of doing the job. Some people, in their ignorance, actually asked us whether the current CEO might consider poking her eye out or chopping off a leg to qualify. So when I stepped down as chair, and I was eventually appointed to the role of CEO, the pushback continued.

To my face, people suggested that my appointment was nothing more than tokenism. There were even media reports that questioned what I could possibly bring to the table, speculating that my leadership would need careful scrutiny, as if my disability somehow diminished my capability. It was a really challenging time for me as a leader. Like many of us, I struggled with imposter syndrome, questioning whether I deserved to be in that role. So this experience taught me something important, though, and that is that the way people view disabled leadership isn't a reflection of our ability.

It's a reflection of their limited understanding. Ultimately, I did change the minds of my critics, though, by leading a grassroots campaign, which resulted in the introduction of dedicated funding for disabled artists and the introduction of a national leadership development program for disabled artists and arts workers. Non-disabled leaders had been advocating for these reforms for decades, but it took a disabled leader to convince the then Minister for the Arts to act. We cannot let the doubts of others hold us back.

05:34

As a community, we must back our blind leaders and support them as they dismantle the long-held beliefs and assumptions that have been perpetuated by our education systems, by families and by the broader communities. We are committed to campaigning for blind leadership within all blindness organisations, and we are equally committed to developing the capacity, capability and confidence of blind leaders. So now I'm proud to announce a few key initiatives as part of this movement tonight.

So the first one is that we are going to survey our blindness organisations, because we want to determine how many blind people sit on the boards of these organisations and how many are direct reports to the CEO. This data will help us understand the current landscape and provide a foundation for change. The second thing we want to do is we want to get your involvement to share some audio submissions with us. So we're going to invite blind people and our allies to submit short audio messages on why it matters that blindness organisations are led by blind people. These voices will help shape our narrative and amplify our cause.

And finally, we want to create an email discussion list. We want to foster ongoing dialogue by creating an email discussion list where blind leaders and their allies can share ideas, ask questions and offer support.

Speaker 3 07:18

Following Graeme's comments on the future of United Blind Leaders, we were delighted to have a presentation given by the President of the National Federation of the Blind in the United States of America, Mark Riccobono.

Speaker 5 07:29

You know, there will be those who may feel that my presence in this space is simply another example of those pesky Americans interfering in other nations. But I want to assure you that the fact of the matter is that the systems that have been built to quote benefit blind people, the negative misconceptions that those systems perpetuate and the real barriers that those systems have perpetuated now for a long time transcend the borders of all of our nations. I refer to those systems as the vision industrial complex. And if you spend any time around agencies for the blind, you start to recognize the patterns and those patterns exist and influence what happens even among people who have the best of intentions.

But they are influenced by the years of buildup in these systems. And I want to give a plus one to the idea that we shouldn't take a burn it down mentality, but in fact, we should have a very clear blind led blind centered effort to reform these systems and make them into something authentic to us. The real product of the vision industrial complex is the hierarchy of beliefs and understanding means that choosing a non blind person to lead one of these agencies is in fact, one of the most important characteristics that people look for either implicitly or explicitly.

And as long as the National Federation of the blind has been working on this and rejected this idea, even with our success in the United States of America, this is still a real persistent problem amongst agencies for the blind in our country. Agencies continue to perpetuate the idea that vision is a requirement for success. And those agencies have real difficulty when called upon to believe in blind people in a way that empowers blind people. And we really should not compromise our values in terms of what we expect. It's not just that we expect to be at the table. When it has to do with us, we should expect to set the agenda. We should expect to be at the head of the table and to lead the efforts.

And as has already been shared in so many places today, that would never be tolerated with other characteristics. But unfortunately, because of disability, it's just simply accepted that it's okay to have someone who is not disabled be at the head of those efforts.

Speaker 3 10:40

As well, we heard from [?Renan] podcaster, assistive technology advocate and blind leadership advocate, Jonathan Mosen from New Zealand. Jonathan launched the United Blind Leaders website, and if you'd like to check that out, you can check it out at UnitedBlindLeaders.org ...

Speaker 6 10:55

The indigenous Maori people of New Zealand have a fakatoki, or a proverb. It says... When we stand alone we are vulnerable but together we are unbreakable. So in the Anzac spirit I'm proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my Aussie mates in your campaign for what is a critical civil rights issue. The active blind community in any country is small intimate even and typically everybody knows everyone else. And the smaller the country the bigger the challenge posed by that. Now Emma's already referred to the fact that in our part of the world Australia and New Zealand we use the term tall poppy syndrome where those who rise above are swiftly cut back down.

But no matter the consequences the tall beautiful blind poppies stand proud tonight. These tall poppies refuse to be cut down. Make no mistake this fight takes a toll. It risks friendships, it exposes us to criticism, derision and even isolation. So for those bearing the brunt of all of this I want to give you some comfort by saying that at no time in history did progress come without a price. Those of us who lead in this space carry a unique responsibility. We're not just working for ourselves, we're working for those who will come after us. We are standard bearers for a movement, for a community that's often doubted, frequently underestimated. We cannot afford to fail because our failures are amplified.

Now many disabled leaders don't talk about this publicly because we can't afford to be vulnerable. But some of us talk about this pressure with each other and yet we pay that price because no one makes a bigger difference to blind people at the top table than a blind person. And while non-disabled leaders may switch off at the end of the work day we cannot. Our community is not something we lead and then leave. We live it, we breathe it, we are it. We can't forget about it when we eventually move on to the next gig. We are directly affected by our own legacy. Having that kind of unique skin in the game makes us better leaders and that is why I say to you today blindness is a compelling qualification for the leadership of a blindness organisation.

Speaker 3 13:32

The United Blind Leaders received an email from the Chair of Vision Australia to announce that they have changed their minds, and they will be going through an open and transparent recruitment process prioritising the appointment of a blind or vision impaired CEO of Vision Australia. And of course it's worth pointing out that Vision Australia has an affirmative action policy which they will adhere to in the search for the appointment of the new CEO and that doesn't guarantee that we will necessarily get a blind or vision impaired person but it certainly indicates that the organisation is prioritising the appointment of a blind or vision impaired leader to bring the organisation through its next phase of development.

So that's very good news, and the 1408 people who signed the United Blind Leaders petition will be very happy to hear that. 

That's it for this week's programme but as a reminder if you'd like to get in touch with Blind Citizens Australia you can call 1 800 033 660 1 800 033 660. If you'd like to email you can email bca@bca.org.au - that's BCA at BCA dot org dot AU. We'll be back again next week.

Speaker 1 14:42 (THEME)

We'll achieve the realisation of our dreams / Of our dreams...