Enabled to prosper

Diversity is wonderful. But by its nature, it includes a challenge: What does one focus on? Linguists can’t easily study all the world’s 7000 languages or save all the smallest ones from dying out. Botanists and zoologists looking at biodiversity conservation face even bigger tasks. At a much more modest level, organizations working to improve their Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) also need to prioritize, recognizing that every disadvantaged group will have specific needs.

One frequent bit of Change Management advice is “Go for the big numbers first”. Which in D&I typically puts Gender top of the list. That’s certainly the case at the Syngenta Foundation. We’ve set ourselves a 2025 goal of 50% women agri-entrepreneurs and smallholders, or 2.5 million of them, well supported and empowered.

Gender is a great start. But our D&I programs look further. And some other disadvantaged social groups also have “big numbers”. One such group are people with disabilities. In Kenya, about 2.2% of the population live with some form of disability. That means more than a million people. Big number? It’s dwarfed by Indonesia: More than 22 million people there have disabilities. That’s eight percent of the population.

Why do I quote those two countries in particular? ?

In both Kenya and Indonesia, our local teams are working to improve the lives of rural people living with disabilities. (The national numbers above come from them – thank you!). In Kenya, together with the charity Sightsavers, and with funding from USAID, we’re helping sorghum growers with disabilities supply a major brewery. More than 1800 smallholders have already joined in. They sell to the brewers via Farmers’ Hubs, whose owners we have selected, trained and coached. 17 of the program’s 95 Hub owners also have disabilities.?

Our Indonesian team at YASI also focuses on such Hubs as a business opportunity for people living with a disability. The local staff guides them through accessing finance, starting their own Pancer Tani hub and growing it. There are already 42 good examples, and more are coming. One of my favorite inspiring stories appears in YASI’s 2022 Report: A Pancer Tani owner with a serious leg defect is now making good money with organic fertilizer – and his blind wife teaches in the village kindergarten! ??

It's easy to be cynical about such programs – for example, because, yes, there are far fewer potential beneficiaries than when the focus is on gender equity. Which means – according to one Terminal Cynic argument – that programs for people with disabilities just make the organizers feel warm and fuzzy.

Well, I like people feeling good about what they do. And I object to cynicism. Try telling the individuals with disabilities that the work to support them is less important than for other disadvantaged people! As Teddy Tambu, head of YASI, puts it: “People with disabilities face multiple obstacles and are often poor. They have challenges accessing health, education, transport, information and employment”. Data from the USA, too, show that people with disabilities earn less than many of their peers. ?As Sigrid Arnade said in her groundbreaking 1997 book, ‘it’s society that gives people disabilities’. And she was talking about wealthy, supposedly “developed”, western Europe.

Social attitudes getting in the way? Doesn’t that sound familiar from Gender programs? In both cases, who could be better than foundations and NGOs to tackle such obstacles, when others don’t? Not all on our own, of course, because major change requires partnerships. But leading the way – whether the numbers are huge and half the population… or just “big”, like 22 million. People with disabilities deserve a living income, like everybody else. Interested in helping that happen? Please get in touch!