In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand In Gear - Issue 3 | Page 17

terrible things that happen, which is very easy to do,
because we know that it is just horrific – people just
get left behind, targeted, recruited because of their
disabilities,” Robbie says.
“But, for me, looking more at solutions is something
that aligns with my philosophy, and how can we take
their positive experiences that have led them to a place
of survival and use that to inform future humanitarian
response to conflicts, future policies.
“The idea is that the conflict zone is a magnified,
extreme situation; if you focus on people in the most
vulnerable of circumstances – and I don’t think people
with disabilities should be blanketed as vulnerable,
but they often are – if we can shine the light on that,
and get human rights being addressed in that conflict
situation, then, my theory is, that other human rights
will naturally have occurred.
“Disability affects people of all kinds – if you address
the rights of the disability community then the likes of
women’s rights and children’s rights would apply and
be part of it.”
At the end of 2015, Robbie left Attitude to return to
Dunedin to study for her PhD full-time. Another very
special project was also starting to pick up steam.
Robbie and a small group of like-minded friends had
been throwing around concepts for frameworks to
support people with disabilities into employment
and business, with an emphasis on sustainability and
inclusivity.
The ghastly images of the scenes from the institution in
Mexico remained burned in her conscience.
“This is a worldwide problem, so, we thought, how can
we use business to change people’s perspective of
diversity?
“We can look at some of the really cool things we’ve
seen go on around the world – I’m thinking, like, Trade
Aid, Fairtrade – new systems of trade and business that
pay attention to the supplier or the farmer. I love these
brands, but none of these has disability on the agenda.
“I’m really passionate about giving people the
opportunity to define what they want, what their needs
are and how their future is going to be played out.”
While the ‘charity model’, Robbie says, has its place, it
wasn’t a framework the group wanted to explore for
their initiative.
“It hasn’t always done the best thing for human rights
in the sense that the charity model of disability has
been all about ‘poor disabled people’, or ‘we’ll give you
some coins on the street’, and that kind of pity party.”
They, instead, decided on what’s known as the
‘universal design’ approach.
“The whole idea of universal design is removing
barriers, not for one particular sector of society, but to
make it more accessible to everyone.”
Robbie and her friends asked themselves key
questions. What can we do to train and employ people
with disabilities? How can we show other employers
and businesses that it’s possible? How can we be the
living proof?
“We started thinking, we’ve got people in cafés in New
Zealand employing disabled people, we’ve got attitude,
we’ve got different things – but, what if we
extended that and started looking
at the entire value chain of a
product?”
Then, Robbie and her
team woke up and
smelled the …
“Coffee – we just really love coffee.
It’s cool, it’s hip, it’s marketable. And,
something that’s really come out is that
coffee brings people together. Anyone of
any background can enjoy a coffee.”
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