Title:
Turning Disability Stigma Into Love and Inclusion with Cynthia Bauer

Subtitle:
How Kupenda for the Children is changing harmful beliefs, empowering local advocates, and creating brighter futures for children with disabilities worldwide

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week, we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths, let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia Anderson. We have a fascinating show today that I wanna start with a statistic that I took off of the Kupenda for Children website. Did you know that 580 million children with disabilities live around the world, and 80% of them are in developing countries?

Wow. Incredible statistic. I cannot wait to dive into this conversation today. And from that statistic, I believe that many are still being hidden, neglected, excluded, denied education, healthcare, belonging, all the things that we all deserve as we’re navigating life. Today’s episode on Pushing Forward with Alycia, I am joined by the amazing, incredible Cynthia Bauer.

She’s the founder of Kupenda for Children, an organization turning disability stigma into a community-led advocacy movement that includes care and inclusion and all kinds of incredible initiatives. I cannot wait to dive into this. Kupenda trains thousands of families, youth, leaders every year, helping, 70,000 children with disabilities have access to support, opportunities, and one of my favorite keywords, dignity.

This conversation is about changing beliefs around the world, transforming systems, and pushing disability inclusion forward in so many places that I know are often left behind. So Cynthia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time and the work that you’re doing.

Cynthia Bauer: Thank you for having me.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. I can’t even remember how our paths have crossed.

We’ve been trying to get this interview going for quite some time, and when I started doing some research on the work that you’re doing, absolutely incredible, first and foremost, and I know very needed globally for so many different reasons. That number, 580 million children with disabilities worldwide, 80% live in developing countries.

When you think about the children and families behind that number, what do you wish people understood?

Cynthia Bauer: The first thing that I think everyone needs to understand, and I know that you message this all the time, is that every person is a person regardless of ability or disability. And I think it sounds so simple, but it’s actually profound to a lot of people to recognize that just because a person has a disability doesn’t make them any less of a person who has the same feelings, the same wants, the same needs as any other person does in this world.

Alycia Anderson: Absolutely. I agree. And your work, I believe, originated in Kenya doing, was it wildlife research as not in the disability advocacy space initially.

Cynthia Bauer: My background was, is wildlife biology. I always wanted to work with animals. I always loved nature. I went to Africa because I wanted to be like Jane Goodall or like Cynthia Moss studying elephants, and that was originally why I was there. And I worked as a wildlife biologist for many years, and being a disability advocate was actually something I was very opposed and pushed away from because growing up I think that the word disability was something, and still is unfortunately to some people, seen as a negative word. And I wanted to prove to everyone not only could I do things the same as other people with two hands, because I’m missing my left hand, which you can’t see on the podcast. I wanted to prove I was better than them. And I’m the oldest of four kids, so I also tend to be like pushy anyway. So I wanted to show people not only can I do them as well, but maybe better.

So there’s a lot of things I did because I lived in a time before the internet too, so I couldn’t Google like one-armed like kayaker or one-armed surfer or any of that stuff. And so I would figure out how to do those things sometimes ’cause I wanted to, but sometimes to just show that I could. And I never really was connected to other people who looked like me or even other people with disabilities, and I just didn’t wanna be part of that because I didn’t want that to be who I was. And I don’t think it was until I was in Kenya taking some environmental classes and saw people on the streets of Nairobi with different disabilities begging on the streets, and saw a man with a hand like mine. That I wondered what my life would’ve been like if I was there, and I also wondered if there was anything I could do that would actually support people with disabilities in African context, because that was where I had felt drawn to begin with.

And I asked my Kenyan professors at the time what was being done for people with disabilities. Like, why was I seeing so many people on the streets with disabilities? And they said there really wasn’t a lot at the time. And they also said that if I had been born in Kenya with my missing left hand, it’s very possible I might have been killed because of my lack of a hand. Partly because of beliefs around witchcraft or lack of faith or sin causing the disability, but also because of a belief that I wouldn’t actually be very useful, that I wouldn’t be able to carry water on my head or crush corn to make flour, which are actually things I can do. But the misguided notion is that someone with a missing hand can’t do those kinds of things.

And still, when I’m in other countries outside of the US, I become more disabled because there’s a different cultural perspective of me. Even a friend of mine was traveling with me just this recent time, and we got pushed up to the front of the line at security at the airport in Nairobi, and he’s like: Why are we getting pushed up to the front?

I’m like: Oh, it’s the arm. They saw it. They’re pushing me up to the front. Even though in my particular case, I don’t need any actual assistance.

Alycia Anderson: So there’s so much to unpack there. That is really fascinating. First of all, we were talking about how we’re the same age. Yeah.

I was the same when I was younger too, right? You couldn’t Google anything. You couldn’t learn about other people that look like you. I didn’t wanna be part of the community either.

I wanted to just show up and be a part of typical life. And so I have all of that lived experience too, and I think that probably comes with the immense amount of lack of representation and just, the early stages of this movement, right? And I love how you moved to Africa, and you start to have these moments with human beings in the street going, “Wow, they look like me.

Their life is completely different. Why is this happening, and how can I help?” And that’s what sparked your motivation, your inspiration, your reasoning to start doing this work that you’re doing. That’s super incredible. And that whole idea of you’re being cursed, you’re cursed because of a disability.

Cynthia Bauer: How prevalent is that still? It’s more prevalent than you would think. I don’t know what your involvement might be with faith communities even in the US, but even in the United States, I’ve heard people tell me “My mom was in a wheelchair, and she was told by her pastor if only she had more faith, she’d get up out of her wheelchair.”

And when I was born, I was the firstborn of my parents. My dad was 22, and he thought he wanted to take me to a faith healer here in the United States. So I always wanna make sure people know it’s not that it doesn’t exist here, it’s just not as upfront.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Cynthia Bauer: Even just recently just a few years ago, I lost my niece to cancer.

She was almost 10, a faith healer showed up at my brother’s house in Massachusetts and said that all cancer was a result of unresolved sin in the life of the family.

Alycia Anderson: Oh.

Cynthia Bauer: And it’s almost like when there’s a lot of suffering, when people are desperate and they don’t see any other options they’re gonna be open to more of this.

And I think in places where we work in low-income countries, there’s more desperation, there’s less medical services, there’s less education, so you’re gonna go to what’s available. And what is available are traditional and faith healers in many of these communities when there’s not access to the other kinds of education and resources.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. I feel like even in my life too, like I’ve had the, “Wow, you must have done something really bad in your past life,” or like things like that have been said to me. And so it just is, it sounds like it’s even more amplified globally, especially when there’s not as many resources. And talk about the transformation of harmful beliefs.

That’s one of them. I’m sure.

Like you’re doing this work, and I believe, I want you to… I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but.

Cynthia Bauer: Sure.

Alycia Anderson: I pulled this off of your bio or your website or something, where you’re trying to transform harmful beliefs about disability stigmas, fear, disinformation, misinformation.

Talk about that a little bit from like a cultural standpoint and the work that you’re doing with it.

Cynthia Bauer: Sure. And one of the best ways is to give you an example that really sparked us to focus more on the stigma reduction, ’cause when I started this organization, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a grad student in wildlife conservation, met 15 kids 25 years ago, and I thought, “Oh, maybe I could help get them some education.

Maybe there’s this.” And like many Westerners, just responding to needs and not necessarily doing it in a helpful way always. We’re trying, but it was when we had a teacher that worked for us that was told by her pastor that the only way that she could get rid of her HIV was if she stopped taking her medication.

And she did, and she died.

Alycia Anderson: Oh wow.

Cynthia Bauer: And I knew about the stigma, but that was really what sparked me to ask questions of my co-founder, Leonard Mbonani, who’s a special needs teacher in Kenya on the coast, and I said: is this something– I know it’s the belief system, but have we ever thought about going directly to the people who are the cause of these beliefs that are causing the community to think this way? And so we had our first pastor workshop in 2006 to talk about how the Bible talks more about just healing, and it doesn’t mean you can’t pray for people while they’re in the hospital. Why does it have to be an either/or, for example? And then that evolved into talking to traditional healers, ’cause most people have access to a pastor or a traditional healer. For those who might not know what a traditional healer is, people might mistakenly think of them as like a witch doctor or something like that. They’re people who might have herbal remedies. Sometimes they do rituals that can be harmful, like burying people up to their necks, burning kids with hydrocephalus trying to do something to help, right? There are people who generally wanna help for the most part, and then there’s those who know they’re not helping but wanna make money off of it. There are people who will pay people to pretend to get out of wheelchairs, right? But most of the people really want to do the right thing. They just don’t know what some of the alternatives are.

So when we meet with them, we have a very respectful, informed discussion. I actually had my uncle come from a small church in Maine to come talk with some of the pastors, and he said, you guys are pastors. You tell me about what the Bible says about disability.” And did you know there’s more than just people that were healed?

There were some people who had disabilities in the Bible. There are things that we’re supposed to do to include people that are beyond healing. And when we talk to traditional healers, we’re like, “What kind of things do you do if you see a person with, say, this kind of disability?” If it’s a child with cerebral palsy, they might be like, “Oh, we cut the skin so that the spirits can come out,” which is harmful for the child, right? But our director will say, “But have you seen that work?” And they’ll be like, “Actually, no.” “Would you like to know some things that can support kids with cerebral palsy?” We wanna say it’s not to cure them, but to actually help them to better live their lives, and also how we can more include people with disabilities in society as a bigger reason.

And it’s amazing to see in just a one-day workshop, which is what our model is, the transformation just in that one day around the beliefs, and part of it’s ’cause people are so hungry for information, but also it’s partly ’cause we don’t come in and say, “Oh, you guys are wrong. Come listen to us.” We say, “Let’s talk about this.

Let’s talk about why you think this way. Let’s also think about like what are some of the reasons you think this, and have you seen it work?” And then we always make sure people with disabilities– There was a time when I was the person there playing my guitar with one hand. I play a left-handed guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but not so good.

But now we have other people that have been working with us long enough with disabilities in Kenya that are sharing their own stories. And most of the participants in our workshops have said that the stories from the people with disabilities themselves was one of the biggest factors in changing their mindset because you’re humanizing what’s an issue, right? And 50% of the people who come to our workshops either have a disability or have a close family member with a disability. And so when we start those workshops, we say, “Think about that person and like what you would want their life to be like as we’re going through this.” ‘Cause I think sometimes people can talk about disability like an issue, right?

And we hear it unfortunately in today’s political conversations, as opposed to individual human beings, that might just be part of their character. It’s not all of who they are.

Alycia Anderson: So I love that. I have a question written here. How has your identity as a disabled woman, helped you connect like the cross-cultural, interaction and community understanding, and how has that challenged you? And I want you to answer that still, like what have the challenges been?

Cynthia Bauer: But I like it a lot that you are going in there with storytelling. Like I see that on all the stages that I’m on too. Like the biggest impact is to have real life stories in there to be able to relate to. So I can only imagine what you specifically in this movement and then like everybody who’s working with you who’s also leading, can you talk about some of those. There’s two stories that I think answer your question a little bit around like the connection, there’s challenges, but also I find there to be a connection in terms of disability trumping cultural differences.

I’ve found that when we bring families and other people with disabilities from different cultures coming to work with some of the families we work with, and they’ve said that the disability unites us more than the cultures divide us because there’s really a common language and common experience amongst all of us around disabilities. And one of those would be this little girl I met right after a broken engagement. So it was like this time I was like, “What am I even doing with my life?” That kind of thing. this little girl was born while I was in Kenya. I was only there for a couple weeks, and she was born with an arm just like mine.

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Cynthia Bauer: The parents didn’t know about me, but they had come to our offices in Kenya, and it was because of a traditional healer who had been connected with us before, was the birth attendant. And she brought her to our offices telling us that the mom wouldn’t come out of her house because she was not understanding what she had done wrong to have caused it. Now, knowing what she had done wrong, I’m sure there’s things like, like my mom dealt with did I not wear a lead vest when I was, going to the dentist when I was pregnant? There’s that, but it’s more of a spiritual what did I do wrong, that I was being punished for something, right? So there’s a difference of what did I do wrong in that question. And so we had them come in and I held this little baby in my arms that had an arm just like mine. And as our director and our chairperson talked to the parents, and they kinda did like– Sometimes I don’t know if you ever feel like this. I’m almost like doing like a circus act. Showed them how I tie my shoes, told them how I can carry water on my head, those kinds of things. And he also said, it’s because this person, myself, when I was in Kenya studying this animal called the golden-rumped elephant shrew, this random thing the size of a rabbit, only exists in this one forest in Kenya. Says because she came to study here and she noticed this school for kids with disabilities and wanted to help, all these kids are now being helped. And so when the mom left, she said, “First of all, I didn’t know that this kind of thing happened to white people.” She thought it was an exclusively African thing.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, wow!

Cynthia Bauer: And then she said, “Maybe my daughter can do things like other people, and maybe she’ll actually help people one day now.” And she’s a teenager now, and she’s at the top of her class in a mainstream school and doing really well.

And the one thing I noticed about her is before she started going to school, you’d see her arm as she was talking or doing something. But as soon as she started going to school, I noticed she does like me, where she held her arm behind her back, which is something that I habitually just do because sometimes you just wanna be a person and not people ask questions all the time.

And not all disabilities can be hidden in your pocket like mine can. So I think that I saw her confidence. There was a little girl just recently that’s in one of our inclusive running clubs in Kenya, and she has a missing hand as well. And she said, “People used to make fun of me all the time. I used to hide my arm. But now that I’m in this club where there’s people with and without disabilities, I know that I’m included. I know that I am human like anybody else. So if people make fun of me now, I tell them, ‘No, I’m human too.'” And she just stands up for herself, which to me is beautiful.

And it’s not just people who have an exact same disability. The other story is I was at an international albinism awareness celebration in Nairobi. I just happened to be in Nairobi for a conference, and that was happening, and we were invited to it by a person with albinism who was an advocate. And when I walked into the room, a guy greeted me who had albinism And he saw my missing hand, and he goes, “Oh, you’re one of us.” And now, I wear that with pride, that he saw a missing pigment as like being the same thing as a missing hand. Because regardless of the disability, we all have varying degrees of ability or challenges, but there’s that one thing that connects us, which is people usually undervaluing, underestimating us, and just knowing what it’s like for people to stare and say dumb things.

I’m sure we could go through like whole day of all the dumb things people have ever said to us.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Cynthia Bauer: But that’s probably not what people wanna hear right now.

Alycia Anderson: I love all those stories. I like visually can see them. That’s so amazing, so powerful. What are those children with disabilities at that coming of age with their disability, sounds like they are getting there way faster than I did, and probably you as well.

Cynthia Bauer: Yeah.

Alycia Anderson: What are they teaching us about advocacy that adults today our age are forgetting?

Cynthia Bauer: Oh kids I think are the best the earlier you can get them, the better. I just noticed my niece when she was graduating from kindergarten, she knew what I did for work and that I worked with people with disabilities, and I saw her graduation performance, and there was like three kids who had visible disabilities, and she had never told me about that, which I thought was kinda cool because for her it was just normal. And I think that’s the thing. There’s more and more kids, and we’re trying to push more for that, that if you grow up with people that look different, a variety of people all over the spectrum, you’re gonna grow up thinking that, that’s just a normal part of life is for people to have differences, and people will be more accepting and will teach the adults.

We do youth advocacy as well, and we do a lot in schools, and one of the things that some of the kids were saying, and these were kids without disabilities saying it, “We used to play with the kids with disabilities, but then they put a fence between where they are and where we are, and we can’t get to them anymore.

The adults did that.”

And I think the kids come and they push against the adults and they tell them like, “No, these are our friends. This is my friend and we’re playing together and we want to play together.” And I think they’re more accepting. We’ve had children where we’ve tried to do more inclusive classrooms where the parents have taken the kids without disabilities out of the classroom when the kids with disabilities were brought in. It wasn’t the kids that complain, it’s usually…

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Cynthia Bauer: …the parents.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. Which is always such a common, topic for me. I don’t know, when you’re speaking or engaging with parents and they just go like, ” I don’t know how to allow my child to navigate this, and how do we stop the shushing, and how do we move forward openly to allow the learning to happen?”

Cynthia Bauer: And it’s just, it’s such a blocker for adults. I was just speaking at a event yesterday, and it’s always this topic, and I’m like, “Just let them navigate it. I actually was just talking to someone about that the other day, about how should children approach people who have disabilities, say out in public. I’m like, honestly, my opinion anyway is like maybe don’t have your kids talk to strangers regardless of ability. And if it’s within the context of a relationship, sure.

And then when you go home, have a discussion and read things written by people with disabilities, watch podcasts and videos of people who can tell you what it’s like. But sometimes that person just wants to grocery shop and be left alone. Not everyone wants to be an advocate every second of their life.

And those of us who are advocates, we probably are more patient than other people might be because we feel oh, this is a learning time, right? Whereas other people, I think they assume that everyone wants to talk about that, which is not necessarily the case.

Alycia Anderson: So let’s talk about the organization a little bit more. talk about your one-day workshops.

Cynthia Bauer: Sure.

Alycia Anderson: What’s the community? Is it parents? It sounds like disabled people, allies.

Cynthia Bauer: Who’s attending these things?

So we have workshops catered to the type of person that will be involved. So we have the ones that we start with are the ones who have the most influence over the community, which tend to be faith leaders which includes pastors, traditional healers. We have an interfaith workshop now as well. And then we also have workshops for government leaders, we’re starting to work with community health promoters and other healthcare providers. And then what happens is after those workshops, they actually go into the communities and they’re so influential, they find families affected by disability.

They counsel them, find them and they come together in a what we call a parent or caretaker workshop, because our focus is children whenever we can be. And those families then get together, and often it’s their first time they’ve had a safe place to share about their experiences with disability. And then in those family workshops, we tell them their rights. We have them have discussions, and they form parent or caretaker support groups that then help advocate in their communities as well as do things like income generation, support one another in terms of their kids’ healthcare and education. And also just helping people to understand that they’re, again, fully human. But each workshop starts the same. It always starts with people sharing their experiences with disabilities. We ask them the definition of disability because even those listening to this podcast now may have different definitions of what disability actually is. So we default to the United Nations definition, which isn’t as clear as you might think. It’s if people think you’re disabled, then you’re disabled, right? It’s not really some list of different things that people have or don’t have.

Alycia Anderson: What is the definition from the United Nations?

I wanna make sure I get it exactly right Because it starts with people, which is extremely important. It is people with long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments that in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

Cynthia Bauer: That is the UN definition. The American Disability Act is similar. One thing I like about the Americans with Disability Act definition is it actually says having one or more physical, intellectual, or behavioral challenges that affect your daily life and our daily activities. And the thing that I always ask people is like: What do you think it is I can’t do, right?

In my particular case.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, good question.

Cynthia Bauer: The list is quite long when I ask. Americans don’t like to say it, but in other countries they’ll say it, and kids will say it too.

And so I ask, the list is long. I’m like: You wanna know the thing I really can’t do physically? They’re like: What? I’m like: I can’t do a handstand. That’s what I can’t do. I’m like: Most everything else you listed I can do. I might do it differently, but I can do it. I said, but honestly, the bigger challenge is in this next part of the Americans with Disability Act is, or the perception of such a limitation.

Alycia Anderson: Ooh.

Cynthia Bauer: So, the perception of limitation or the barrier cited the UN definition, the barriers are also perceptions and societal bias, which disable us more.

Alycia Anderson: Which are the problem.

Cynthia Bauer: Yeah. And most people I ask that have disabilities, regardless of the disability type, if I ask, “What is a bigger challenge for you, physical barriers or societal perceptions?” Everyone I’ve asked so far says societal perception.

Alycia Anderson: Me too.

Cynthia Bauer: Yeah, there you go.

Alycia Anderson: Obviously.

Cynthia Bauer: You were added to my list. One day I’ll do an actual study of it. And societal perception, when that changes, Obviously changes the physical barriers as well. ‘Cause if you feel all people with wheelchairs should be able to not only get into the building, they should be able to get onto the stage to share at that building.

They’re not gonna think that’s important if their viewpoint is like they’re not gonna have anything to say,” right? How many times have you been into a place and it’s like the silliest things that you’ll see. There’s like this one step that’s to an accessible bathroom. You’re like, “Really?”

Yeah, and it’s to your point, like I remember one of the first times I ever did a keynote, and I was naive. I didn’t even think “Oh, I probably need to say, is there gonna be a ramp to this?” And I get there, and I’m like giving this keynote on inclusion, and I literally had to be carried up in front of the audience.

Alycia Anderson: And it was like so counterintuitive, and it was like so ridiculous. So you’re 100% right.

Cynthia Bauer: I hope you’ve said something to people at the very beginning of your keynote about having to be carried up to the front.

Alycia Anderson: I was so uncomfortable, number one, It was like a fight or flight moment. I was like, “I can’t believe I’m here. Was this my fault? Is it their fault? Like, how did I not communicate? It seems so obvious to me.”

Cynthia Bauer: It just shows why we’re needed.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. Yeah, it really does. So I wanna talk about the name, the word.

I wanna talk about the word Kupenda.

Cynthia Bauer: Okay?

Kupenda means to love.

Alycia Anderson: Love this. Oh, I love-

Cynthia Bauer: And the thing that’s beautiful about the word, it’s not a word that translates easy. It’s not just love, it’s like this constant action of loving, so it’s a constant state of being. And one of the things a long time ago when I first wanted to help some kids in Africa with disabilities, I had someone say, “Can you come talk about the work you’re doing? What is it called?” I’m like, “What do you mean, what is it called?” Again, I say I started an organization by accident. It’s not something I planned to do. It evolved and it’s happened. But we were going through a Swahili dictionary, a friend of mine and I, till 3:00 in the morning, and kupenda seemed to be the one that fit.

And on, on the coast of Kenya, where our offices are we call ourself kuhenda, which is the same thing as kupenda, it’s just the local language. So Swahili is the Kenyan language. Giriama is the language on the coast where we first started. So we’re the same, but just kinda named ourselves a little bit different that way.

We’re trying to figure out if we should keep naming ourselves different or be the same, but they’re technically the same ’cause they both mean love. Because at the end of the day, what does every person want but to be loved and included?

Alycia Anderson: Yeah, my platform’s called The Heart of Inclusion, and it’s very much about love too. So I love that kupenda means love because I think that’s where we start with this work, and if we don’t, it makes it really difficult and sometimes hard to receive, honestly.

Wrong, or indifferent for saying that, it just seems to be that way.

So I love that you lead with love ’cause I do too. We vibe that same thing as well.

So how do we get involved, support you, donate? Talk about that a little bit. Let’s really lay all that out for all the corporations that are listening to this and all the things.

Cynthia Bauer: Yeah. So there’s so many ways. and because our work is very community-led, our monthly support is so important to keep the work going because what we’re doing is not just supporting a few kids so that they can go to school. We’re now transforming communities so that they can make sure that for generations to come, families affected by disability will have access to all the resources that they need, and they’re gonna work with the governments, they’re gonna work with the schools, they’re gonna work with the faith communities to ensure that families affected by disability are included in every way that a person should be included. That’s why it’s so important that we have consistent ongoing support. Obviously, we love large grants, but also if people can come to kupenda.org, it’s K-U-P-E-N-D-A dot O-R-G. You can give monthly, you can give one-time donations, and it supports this work, which I would really say it’s an investment because when you invest in one person, like if you see our numbers, you’ll see 70,000, you’ll see 100,000, right?

Through the ways that we’re working, ’cause not only are we working with community leaders now, we’re working with international non-governmental organizations like World Vision so that they can be more disability inclusive. And they’re already on the ground. And their reach is even bigger ’cause we wanna actually help other organizations to be more disability inclusive.

So I know how some people like yourself are doing it in corporate settings. We’re doing it in the nonprofit and development sectors so that people with disabilities. If you work in education, if you care about gender empowerment, if you care about any of those things, people with disabilities are often over-represented in the most marginalized group because it’s not just disability is this thing over by itself. People with disabilities are disproportionately impoverished. People with disabilities are not accessing education or healthcare. If you care about any of these things, you need to care about disability too, and that’s the platform that we’re working from. And when we change things, when these community leaders change their mindset, communities are supported.

But then what happens, and this is the funnest thing now that we’ve been around for over 25 years, the kids that were originally supported through this work are now becoming teachers and advocates and teaching other people. And so it’s this ripple effect that’s beyond our ability to count because the kids are then becoming examples.

They’re adults with families and working in jobs and teaching other people. We have some kids that are literally teaching other kids like them, and even just kids being out in the world. It’s amazing. That’s my most proud moment is to see how our kids are now adults helping other families, and then those families helping other families and so on.

And I just got back from Kenya two weeks ago, we had a woman, for example, who was a mother of two kids with microcephalus, so really small heads. And she said before she had encountered this pastor who had been part of our workshops, she said she was in the point of wanting to take her own life because her husband had left, as often happens when it comes to disability. Her kids are now thriving in school. They’re happy. Even in her case, her husband has come back, and it’s just this beautiful story. And then she’s now advocating. We met another family that because of this woman who had been counseled by one of our community leaders, this woman had now counseled another family and found that family and brought them in to some of the work that we’re doing.

And so it’s just beautiful to see how when you start this, they go on from an organic community-driven level, as opposed to coming to rely on outside resources for the long term, because you invest in one kid. When we do the numbers, it ends up being something like, I think last time I did it was like 20 cents can change a kid’s life because of the way we do it for a year.

And that’s where I see the investment part, because the investment is beyond just supporting one person. It’s an investment in a whole community being transformed and thousands over time living their lives to their fullest.

Alycia Anderson: I love this. I love everything about what you’re doing. Congratulations.

Cynthia Bauer: Thanks.

Alycia Anderson: Did we forget anything? Anything that’s super important?

Cynthia Bauer: I don’t think so, but anyone who’s out there that wants to be part of it or talk to us, we would love to talk to you and tell you more about our work and ways to be involved. But honestly, monthly support, as most people will tell you, is the most important thing for us and also other organizations that are interested in our work.

We do trainings now for both foundations as well as NGOs around giving, because if you look at philanthropic giving even, I believe the number is 2% of all philanthropic giving goes to disability-related causes. And of that 2%, 96% goes to the charitable and medical models of disability. And for many of your listeners, I’m not sure if they know what that is, but it’s not the models we like, which is where you view people as objects of charity or people who need to be fixed to be more, quote-unquote, “like normal,” which is the word I hate the most, is the word normal. As opposed to a human rights version, which is empowering transformational change, where people with disabilities are part of leading the efforts and also changing communities to be extremely inclusive, where everyone, no matter their ability or disability, is part of society.

Alycia Anderson: I don’t know why it’s like that.

Cynthia Bauer: And it’s good for everyone.

Alycia Anderson: Why is it like that? It’s more education that’s needed.

Cynthia Bauer: We’ve had foundations that have said to us at first, they’re like, “Oh we don’t do disability. That’s not really our priority.” I’m like, “Yeah, but you care about gender and that.” I’m like, “Did you know that women are twice as likely to be disabled as men in low-income countries?” They’re like, “What?”

I’m like, “Yeah. And did you know that 90% of the parents are single mothers because of what happens when it comes to disability in our communities as well?” So if you care about women, you need to care about disability. If you care about education, 90% of kids with disabilities in low-income countries are still not getting adequate education.

Alycia Anderson: I wanna get involved. I’m so inspired. Love this. Cynthia, thank you for everything that you’re doing for the world. Wow. Well done. Applause.

Cynthia Bauer: Thank you.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, wow. This is so cool. We’re gonna leave all of your information in the show notes so people can follow you, connect with you, support your organization, all the things.

And I really hope you and I stay in touch.

Cynthia Bauer: Yeah, let’s visit when I go out to San Francisco.

Alycia Anderson: I would love that. We’ll do that for sure. We wrap up with a pushing forward moment. So do you have a little piece of advice, mantra, something that you can gift away to our audience?

Cynthia Bauer: I think one of the things I’d like to give away that is my own life experience, and for those with disabilities or anything else in life that might be seen as a challenge, is what can you do with that? I wanna say whatever is hard in life, we can use it to help make other people’s lives easier, and think about how you can do that.

And I think you’ve done that well with your lived experience and sharing what’s going on and how… I know when I was born, I’ll leave you with this last thing, my dad was wrought with guilt thinking, they need to take me to faith healers, all that stuff, and I’d sprout a hand. Yet to see that happening in anything. But my grandfather said, “I think if you just watch, this can be used for good.” And I think that was always something in how he treated me growing up, too, that I felt like I wanted to make a difference in the world. I didn’t know until I was in my 20s that difference would be using my lack of a hand. But I know that it was a thing that was always a challenge. As women, it’s a challenge just when you look different. And I just wanna encourage people, whatever it is you might struggle with, there’s probably other people that also are struggling with it, and you might be able to use your own story to make the lives of other people better.

Alycia Anderson: Ugh, beautiful. I agree. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your work on our show. I know this is gonna be a fan favorite, and I really appreciate everything that you’re doing for our world. Thank you so much.

Cynthia Bauer: Thank you so much for including me. It’s so nice to meet you, and I hope to see you again soon in the future.

Alycia Anderson: We will.

Cynthia Bauer: Thanks to Becky Curran for introducing us.

Alycia Anderson: It just came to me. I was looking at your website and I saw Becky on your website, and I’m like, “It was Becky. Becky introduced us.”

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on.

Cynthia Bauer: She actually supports a kid in our programs with a similar disability as her.

Alycia Anderson: Amazing. Amazing. She’s the best. Okay. It was nice to meet you. Thank you, Cynthia, for coming on the show. Thank you to our community for showing up every week. We’re growing. The podcast is making so much impact. We’re so grateful for you. Thank you for showing up.

This has been Pushing Forward with Alycia and Cynthia, and that is literally how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next week.