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A PhD candidate in Sydney is researching the role of social media in disability advocacy.
28-year-old Umar Syaroni was born with a physical disability, where both of his arms were not developed at full length. He now campaigns for equality in education and healthcare.
Born and raised in Saudi Arabia, Umar was forced to start his education two years later than his classmates, due to his parents being migrant workers originally from Indonesia.
"Schools rejected me only because of my parents. They didn't even assess my quality," Umar said.
Without his parents’ dogged persistence, he might never have attended school. For years, the school his older brother attended refused to enrol him because of his disability.
Returning to Indonesia for college, he faced more discrimination. As a practicing Muslim, Umar said he was shocked that both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia still discriminate against people with disabilities.
“Universities…rejected me because of my disability. They thought that I would not adapt with the students, with the learning processes…but in fact, I graduated as a best graduate.”
Umar believes people with disabilities in both countries are treated as second class citizens, and that negative stereotypes which promote those with disabilities as unproductive, undeserving of equal rights are to blame.
Now studying his PhD at the University of Sydney, Umar is amazed at the difference in attitudes towards people with disability in Australia.
“In terms of inclusive education, my university provides inclusive facilities…they encourage disabled students to acknowledge that we have disability, and if we require special services, we could just apply easily,” Umar said.
Motivated by his experiences of discrimination, Umar’s post graduate research is focused on disability activism in Indonesia, specifically looking at how content creators are utilising social media to challenge and change perspectives on disability.
Through this dissertation, I wish to provide a policy brief to Indonesia's National Disability Commission on how to build this inclusive society using digital contents because now we are living in this digital era,” he said.
Umar recently presented his paper at the 7th Human Rights Conference held at University of Brawijaya, addressing disability rights within the education and healthcare sector using disability and parental perspectives through the lens of co-cultural communication theory from an Indonesian context.
Now working as a Casual Academic, Umar hopes to inspire his students to be as inclusive as possible.
"I want to inspire more people with disabilities and their parents,” Umar said. "I want to encourage them that there is nothing impossible as long as we have this courage to fight for our rights. It is not a special consideration for people with disabilities, but it's our rights. Therefore, we need to change further.”