Ben advocates for people like Naomi, who is vision impaired and studying to be a teacher in Fiji. Here he is presenting her with a laptop donated by Aspen Medical, which is installed with special screen reading software. Photo: Aspen Medical Foundation.
Ben Clare’s work as an educator, inclusion specialist and disability advocate has taken him all over the world.
From the United States to South Africa and across the entire Pacific region, he has been an integral part of international programs run by global health provider Aspen Medical for more than a decade.
Having spent much of that time supporting communities in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Fiji, Vanuatu, Timor-Leste, Philippines, Nauru, Tuvalu and Tonga, Ben is fluent in a number of Pacific languages and is probably one of the most knowledgeable guys out there when it comes to assistive and adaptive technology.
Ben was also born totally blind, which gives him a unique understanding of the challenges people with disability face, especially in finding, securing and maintaining stable employment.
So when Aspen Medical decided to formalise his role as the organisation’s first disability inclusion advisor in July of this year, Ben was thrilled.
“It’s not a common role, although it probably should be,” Ben says.
“I work across the entire organisation. One day, I could be making sure website pages interact properly with speech readers, and the next, working with HR to ensure we have accessible recruitment policies in place.
“I also look at inclusivity from a client perspective – up to 15 per cent of the global population has a disability, so if you don’t have an inclusive product or strategy, you’re missing out on a huge potential market.”
Ben says there is still a discrepancy between what people think working with disability looks like and what it actually means in practice. He’s pictured here at the ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards, for which Aspen Medical is the major sponsor. Photo: Aspen Medical Foundation.
There are a number of considerations for workplaces to factor in when employing people with disability, and they vary from person to person. Advisors like Ben help processes that could otherwise be stressful for both employee and employer run smoothly, such as onboarding or upskilling.
“Employing someone with a disability usually has two main aspects to consider – the social side and the physical side,” he says.
“We are pretty good these days at socially accepting people with a different lived experience to our own, whether it comes in the form of disability, a culturally or linguistically diverse background, mental health, gender identity, or something else entirely.
“But the physical side still intimidates businesses, despite often being easier to accommodate and beneficial for everyone, not just people with a disability.”
For example, an office with inclusive access ramps and elevators will also be easier to traverse for couriers with heavy items or a mother with small children.
Aspen Medical was recently named a finalist in the Blind Australian of the Year awards. A national initiative that celebrates exceptional contributions to society made by blind Australians, the awards also recognise an Employer of Choice that “genuinely embraces” employees living with low or no vision.
“Obtaining and maintaining employment when you’re blind is extremely difficult,” Ben says.
“There are many highly qualified blind people out there who would be an asset to any workplace. The Employer of Choice award acknowledges organisations who are inclusively employing and advocating for the blind community, so being a finalist makes us really proud.”
Ben believes almost every business should have connections to a disability inclusion advisor regardless of size, sector or location. He hopes that one day the world won’t need a role like his but recognises there’ll likely always be work to do.
“Alongside making plain old sense, running a disability-inclusive business is simply the right thing to do,” he says.
“My goal as an advisor is to see more people with disability working in our organisation and more of the community participating confidently in society thanks to the work we do on a global scale.
“For now, I’m just really grateful for the chance to share my knowledge and experiences to help initiate change.”
Find out more about Ben’s story via Aspen Medical.
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