Sara Minkara

Speaker 1: Forward. Forward. Forward. Left. Mind the door.

Speaker 2: There are over four million working age blind and visually impaired people in the United States and over two million of these people are unemployed. This is a staggering statistic, but many people defy these odds and are happily and gainfully employed and we wish to share their stories with the world.

Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Vision Towards Success, the podcast that highlights stories of career development and lived experience. This podcast is brought to you by the Polus Center for Social & Economic Development. In our program, we feature employment success stories from visually impaired individuals for people with disabilities and their allies, in hopes of showing just how smart, hardworking, and capable this diverse community is.

Katie Crocker: Hello and welcome to Vision Towards Success. My name is Katie Crocker and on this program we will hear from Sara Minkara, a passionate advocate and entrepreneur. As a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard University, Sara is the founder of Empowerment Through Integration, a nonprofit organization committed to creating a more inclusive community by disrupting the narrative surrounding disability.

ETI fulfills this mission by empowering youth with disabilities and providing inclusion training. Through its work, ETI proves that an inclusive community allows individuals, regardless of disability, to identify their true selves and reach their full potential. Join us as we learn more about Sara, her personal experience with vision loss, and how her award-winning work has touched audiences worldwide. Joining us now is interviewer Shahim Sutherland and Sara Minkara.

Shahim Sutherla...: Good afternoon, Sara. I was thinking we can start off by introducing yourself for our listeners and a little about who you are and what you do.

Sara Minkara: Definitely. Well, good afternoon, Shahim. Thank you so much for having me. So, my name is Sara Minkara. I'm going to introduce myself in a different way and then I'll go into what I do. But, I am a daughter, I'm a sister, I am a friend, I'm a colleague, I'm a neighbor, I am a troublemaker in so many spaces. I love math, I'm an introvert, I love reading, listening to audio books, I love traveling, I love coffee, I love to eat chicken. I am a woman, I am Muslim, I am blind, I am a person with a disability and I'm very, very proud of it.

That's just a little bit of who I am outside of the norm of how we introduce ourselves. From the basic technical aspects of who I am, I am the founder and CEO of Sara Minkara LLC, which is a global consultancy firm that promotes authentic leadership across diverse sectors and spaces through using this really unique In the Dark Methodology. I've also founded and ran a nonprofit organization called Empowerment Through Integration, which focuses on the empowerment and inclusion with youth with disabilities. So, that's who I am.

Shahim Sutherla...: Were you born blind? I'm sorry if you're not comfortable discussing your vision.

Sara Minkara: No, I was born fully sighted and then I lost my vision when I was seven years old, birthday to be exact. I woke up that morning and I had lost most of my vision. I actually was in our summer house, which looked over these big beautiful mountains, and that morning when I woke up I could no longer see those mountains. I remember calling out to my mom and my mom coming and realizing that her second daughter has also become blind because my sister, two years previously at age seven, she lost her eyesight. So, I lost most of my vision, my eyesight then. I had a little bit usable vision until later on in life. It was a gradual decrease until college years and beyond. That's when I had no more usable vision. But I do have light perception.

Kids adjust, right? And kids take whatever the narrative has brought forward to them. My mom and my family brought forward a certain narrative, "You know what, this is the reality. We're going to empower you. You're going to be included." They pushed us to really see the beauty and the value and the potential that we had within us and because of that we lived a very much full life. When you have the internal narrative that you are, you belong and you exist, and you have something valuable to contribute that empowerment is really what takes you forward.

Shahim Sutherla...: I grew up living with my mother and she always empowered me as well as your parents did like, "Don't use this as an excuse. You should embrace it. You're going to go out and do anything you want." I strongly agree with that.

Sara Minkara: I always give a shout out to all the amazing people in our lives, whether it's mothers, family members, teachers who really empowered us. I always say, every single person in their life, you don't have at least that one person in your life that says, "I see you. You belong. You exist and you have value to contribute." That source of empowerment is priceless and that's what takes you forward. But if you've never experienced that source of empowerment no matter what resources are thrown at you, if you don't believe in yourself, you're not really going to move forward. So a huge shout out to every single person in this world that has empowered other people.

Shahim Sutherla...: When you lost your vision, I know, during your time in elementary school heading into middle school and even high school, what assistive technologies did you use to help you?

Sara Minkara: At an early age they taught me how to use JAWS, which is a screen reader software. Because of that, I was able to really become very independent in many ways using my computer. Audio books, we used to use these big audio tape recorders. I used to listen to my textbooks on audio, which was a pain in the butt because you had to really fast forward to find the right section. And that was, I would say one of the challenges and it taught me patience. I wish I was taught braille at an early age. They didn't teach me braille until high school, which was too late. I should have been taught braille earlier on. Braille really makes a huge difference.

But that's the technology that I used and until now, for me, it's amazing as things develop like the Apple products with the voice-over with the phone, it's really awesome how accessible. The screen reader with JAWS, it's continuing to being developed. All that kind of stuff. But again, when things are being designed, whether it's websites, apps, et cetera, products, screen touches, let's make sure it's accessible for all.

Shahim Sutherla...: What was your relationship with your classmates being in a world where the majority of the population is sighted? I'm just curious.

Sara Minkara: I think my experience, it differed depending on my time at my stage of my life. So elementary, middle, high school, it was fun in many ways. My classmates, I've known my classmates before I was blind. I knew them when I was becoming blind. I was figuring out what the heck was happening with me as I was losing my eyesight. It was never really anything different. I mean, yes, there was difference, sometimes I would have to sit in front or on the side to have an aid next to me and I felt like that just separated me from my classmates in some ways. But because I knew my classmates since I was a little kid up to high school, it wasn't that big of an issue.

College was the first time where I went to a new place. I didn't know anyone. I think that it was a really amazing opportunity and challenge to learn about how do I integrate myself in a space where I am blind and people don't know, and how do they interact with probably most classmates for the first time and they interact with someone who's blind, et cetera, et cetera. But it was beautiful. I mean, I formed a lot of friendships. I think it strengthened my ability to embrace my blindness in a positive way.

I had a lot of classmates come to me and say, "Sara, we love taking classes with you, because that's when the professor needs to be more accessible," and when they're teaching better, when they're more accessible in how they're teaching, that's actually a benefit for everyone. So, I had a lot of classmates come and tell me that, which is really amazing. So ever since then, I mean, one of my greatest strengths is building friendships, whether it's through classmates in college, grad school and beyond, and colleagues as well.

Shahim Sutherla...: That's amazing to hear. I can relate to that because I think meeting new people and building connections and making friends, I really enjoy doing that.

Sara Minkara: There's definitely a blessing and a beauty to us needing, because in many ways we need to sometimes reach out to someone or a stranger like, "Hey, can you just let me know where this store is?" Right? Or, "Am I in the right direction?" Like walking down the street and you talk to random strangers or even in whatever setting you are in and sometimes we need to reach out and connect with certain folks. I think there is a blessing and a strength and a beauty to that because then we actually are really good at building relationships with anyone and everyone. So yeah.

Shahim Sutherla...: So you mentioned you attended Wellesley College, correct? During your time there, what did you study?

Sara Minkara: At Wellesley, I studied math and economics.

Shahim Sutherla...: During your time at Wellesley College, you founded the nonprofit Empowerment Through Integration, correct? Tell us more about that and a little about what that was for.

Sara Minkara: My nonprofit journey started when I was an undergrad. It was kind of by accident. I was planning on doing a PhD in my major instead of starting a nonprofit. As you're saying, I mean, I love math and that's my passion in many ways. But then sophomore year in college, my friend [inaudible 00:10:01] and I got a grant from the Clinton Foundation to run and host an inclusive summer camp in Tripoli, Lebanon. This is where my parents are originally from. We brought together blind and sighted kids and it was such a powerful camp for the kids, for the parents, for the family, for the community members, and even for myself. It just showed the value of inclusion.

So then, senior in college, my professor said, "Why are you applying to these PhD programs? Your eyes sparkle when you talk about that summer. Go pursue that work. That's what you should focus on." And that's why I ended up deciding to turn this work into a nonprofit called Empowerment Through Integration, ETI.

So I remember going home, being like, "Mom, dad, no more PhD. I am going to run a nonprofit organization." And they're like, "What?" That's not why we empowered you.

So anyways, and that's how my journey to starting ETI began. I launched it when I was a senior in college. I ended up then going to Harvard for my master in public policy because I wanted to learn how do you run a nonprofit organization that does true impact? How do you create programs that address systemic impact? And that helped me evolve my mission and my perspective towards disability inclusion. Yeah, and I continued running it for 10 years.

Shahim Sutherla...: Do you sometimes ever go back and work with them at all?

Sara Minkara: I'm on the board, so I still support as a board member. And Anna Barbosa, who used to be our program director, is now the executive director and she's been doing an amazing job. So, I'm there to support in any way that I can. Yeah, I will always be part of ETI because it's my first baby. But I will say if you're able to take risks, take them. You never know what's going to happen. I think taking that risk of starting ETI has been one of the greatest risks I've ever taken.

Shahim Sutherla...: So, another thing that you've done is not only did you found the ETI, you've also done speaking tours, correct? How did you go about getting into that as well?

Sara Minkara: To be honest, my parents kind of joke around about this specifically because I am an introvert and before college I was this shy, timid girl kind of thing. I think ETI was really a place of empowerment for me as well, as I was building and growing it. I found my voice. My voice towards what inclusion is and value-based inclusion and speaking about it and advocating and going in different spaces.

I think when you start finding your voice and your passion, your purpose, that's where you start building, kind of naturally, your speaking abilities and capabilities. That's where I started becoming a speaker in many ways. That's where then I start becoming invited to speak in different spaces. And whether becoming a speaker for the State Department or speaking at different UN events or local university, whatever it is, I think it just comes from my passion and purpose.

I don't write my speeches. I don't like to memorize speeches. That's not how I function. I think I have certain bullet points and points I want to make and I just let my passion take over.

Shahim Sutherla...: That sounds extremely difficult to do.

Sara Minkara: Well, I say it's more difficult if you want to write a speech and memorize it. I think that's more difficult, which I had to do once, for the TEDx talk. But I don't know, that was interesting.

Shahim Sutherla...: Have you done speeches outside of our country at all? Like maybe Lebanon.

Sara Minkara: All over the world. I'm a speaker for the State Department, so they send me on different speaking tours. So I've done speaking in Kurdistan and Rwanda and Vienna and, of course, through my work, Lebanon and across the Middle East and in Europe and Columbia and Latin America and Malaysia. So I've done all over. It's been a beautiful journey. I've been to, I think, around 33, 35 countries so far and I want to continue kind of seeing more of the world and connecting with more communities. But, of course, COVID has been, everything the past year and a half has been virtual. So I've done speaking tours virtually, which it's not the same. But yeah, definitely.

Shahim Sutherla...: So, during the speaking tours and any other things you may have done, have you picked up any other assistive technologies to help you complete those things?

Sara Minkara: I think for me certain apps that I use a lot that have made my life easier. So one app is WhatsApp and it's just using voice message on WhatsApp and being able to easily communicate with my team. My team is virtual, so we have team members across the globe. So, for me, that allows us to be almost in the same room and it's very accessible. TripIt, which is another app when I travel. So there's just different apps I would say that has just facilitated my life a bit better, yeah.

Shahim Sutherla...: Having traveled to many different countries. Have you seen any assistive technologies that you think should be adopted over here?

Sara Minkara: I mean, to be honest, maybe I don't remember. I'm so bad at... I know the U.S. has a lot of these different conventions, which is the National Federation of the Blind. They have their conventions and they actually have assistive technology exhibits, which shows you the latest and the best technology ever. So those are places where you go and you learn.

There's a friend of mine, Paul Parravano, who is a Director of Government Relations at MIT and he's blind, he's the one that I learn a lot from. So from his kind of the latest earpieces, the latest braille reader, the latest... all these different things. I know some people use Aira, but to be honest, it's a lot. Those conventions and those exhibits was where I've seen the latest technology.

Shahim Sutherla...: Would you describe Aira, for those of us who may not know what that is?

Sara Minkara: You use [inaudible 00:15:55] that helps you. There's a number of minutes that you have access to depending on what subscription you have and you have a person almost speaking with you, telling you what's in front of you, and describing things in front of you and are your eyes in many ways.

There's another app, this one is free and a lot of people have used it. A dear friend, Will Butler, who's actually the Head of Communications in this company. It's called Be My Eyes and that's one that they are across the globe and if you need someone, you just call them. If you need any kind of someone's eyes, you call them. You'll point the app, the camera towards the thing, and they'll help you for a few minutes and stuff like that. So, Be My Eyes is something that's really accessible.

Shahim Sutherla...: You did touch on this earlier about having meetings on Zoom and doing speaking tours and stuff like that, but how has COVID-19 affected your work life or personal life or both? You can answer either or.

Sara Minkara: I think there's been positive and negative. So, I launched my consultancy company right when COVID was at its highest in many ways. People were like, "Are you crazy?" My consultancy company was revolving around the In the Dark workshops that we do. Whether it's Inclusion in the Dark or Design Thinking, Innovation in the Dark, just different workshops which have been done in the past in person.

But I was like, "You know what, I'm going to launch this and we're going to do them virtually." Which, for many people were very skeptical and I was also very kind of skeptical to see if this is going to work out. But it was amazing because it pushed us to really figure out a way to do our work virtually and to offer them virtually in many ways. Then that allowed us to scale. So in one day I can do an In the Dark workshop in the morning for an organization in Rwanda, and in the afternoon, an organization in D.C. Whereas, in the past, if I kept them just in person, I wouldn't have been able to do two sessions across the globe in one day.

So I think there's that, it pushed us to really think outside of the box and there's been that blessing. Of course, COVID has hit our family, like all families in a difficult way. Some people that passed away and some people that got sick, some people that got really sick and that kind of stuff. But it's been a blessing to be with the family and a privilege to bond with the family the past year and a half.

Shahim Sutherla...: It's definitely been rough, but as you said there are definitely upsides. It forced companies and other platforms to become more accessible. Zoom has become a major thing. Friends, families are able to come together now without being at risk of catching COVID.

Sara Minkara: Exactly. One thing that my family wasn't happy with... So before COVID I was literally living outside of a suitcase, I was almost in a different country or a different city every week. COVID hit, I haven't traveled for a year and a half. But since May, in May I started traveling. Anyways, I think being home and not traveling for a little bit has been nice just to kind of re-energize. But now I'm inching back to travel, which I have traveled the past few months though.

Shahim Sutherla...: You mentioned the workshops that you hosted, what were they called again?

Sara Minkara: In the Dark workshops. It's part of my consultancy firm that focuses on authentic leadership. So, this sort of workshops revolve around this whole concept of when you remove the lens of sight you have greater vision. We do everything through the constraint of not seeing. When you're not able to see, you're not able to make a lot of labels, which means you're not able to make a lot of assumptions and you remove those aspects. You're forced then to get to know that person for who they are and you start building authentic connection and communication and have a greater vision of who that person is.

Also, you're able to bring more of your true self forward because there're less assumptions and less judgment. There's a power behind that. We've used that concept to really facilitate conversations around inclusion, conversations around design and innovation, conversations around leadership. So we bring these workshops all over the world to companies like Microsoft and Harvard and embassies and all kinds. It's a way to really help companies and spaces to build a space of authenticity, value, and inclusion.

Shahim Sutherla...: Any, or thought of doing workshops for informing or maybe teaching others about blind life?

Sara Minkara: So, in terms of like blind-specific within the company, that's not our focus. For me, our focus is, how do you build a space where everyone can bring their true self forward, which means how can a person with a disability or how can a person of color, whatever it is, bring their full true self forward? And in doing so, more value is brought forward and better policies. So, that's our focus and I think to your point, yes, I think just the public learn more about blind life is really important.

I would definitely recommend organizations like Dialogue in the Dark or even ETI. ETI really focuses on that. So different organizations are already doing that work. It's so important to learn. How do blind people live their life independently and how do we benefit from the value that blind people bring forward to society?

Shahim Sutherla...: I really think it truly is incredible how you teach them how to embrace themself, like you said, bring their true self forward. Whether they be black, white, Asian, or have any disabilities. You should embrace that. I really think that that's a beautiful thing. Have you ever received any awards for your hard work and dedication?

Sara Minkara: I'll mention a few, but to be honest, all these accolades and awards I would say they go out to the amazing team that's helped me do the work that we're doing. I was awarded the Forbes 30 under 30, which was a really great honor. I was awarded the Harvard Alumni Emerging Leader Award and there're many others. But I would say these awards and accolades just speaks to the amazing team that I've had that really believes in the work and help me do the work that we're doing.

Shahim Sutherla...: I do have one final question here before we circle back and bring it to the group to ask you any burning questions that they have in their heads here. What advice or tips and tricks do you have for our listeners who may be disabled or visually impaired?

Sara Minkara: There's two advice I would say. One is, don't see your value through how society sees you. See your value and your strength and embrace your identities through your own lens. Look within. And make sure you're embracing all aspects in all parts of yourself in a positive way. Understand how society's perception might be impacting you in a negative way and try to remove that, and try to really understand that.

So be curious and compassionate with yourself and ask yourself always, "Am I embracing all of who I am? Do I see my true value? Am I being impacted by society in a negative way? Do I truly believe that I have true impact to bring forward to this world?" So, that's one thing, to always ask yourself questions.

The second thing is, truly believe you have the power within to empower others. We all do. We all have the power within to empower others. So how do we make sure that in any space that we're in, we're empowering others? We're allowing others to bring their authentic self forward. We're allowing others for their voice to be brought forward. We're allowing others to really embrace all of who they are. So, see the power in, that we have the power to empower others. Those are my two points of advice.

Shahim Sutherla...: That's great advice. Thank you once again for coming on and taking time out of your day to meet with us and answer all my questions.

Sara Minkara: Of course. Thank you, Shahim.

Katie Crocker: You are listening to Vision Towards Success. I'm Katie Crocker and our guest today is entrepreneur and advocate, Sara Minkara. After her interview with Shahim, team member Josh Pearson spoke with her more specifically about the impact of harnessing one's full potential and how to thrive as a person with a disability.

Josh Pearson : Hi Sara, this is Josh.

Sara Minkara: Hi Josh.

Josh Pearson : Hi. I want to thank you for taking the time to share your story. I'm curious, you've mentioned the word "ableism," fairly early on in the conversation and in particular, I'm really struck by the way that you introduced yourself in terms of really covering that intersection of identities. Diversity is very much something, especially in the employment sector now. It is thrown around, diversity inclusion statements, and it seems like it can either be done just as lip service or to check a box.

When you are engaging with all of these different organizations and spreading your message of inclusion, what are your measurables in terms of success metrics? How do you know that your work is having an impact and you are not just there to check off that diversity box?

Sara Minkara: Yeah, it's a really good question. To be honest and to be real, it depends on the partner and the client. Some clients are just looking for a check, checking off the box and say, "Great, it's October Disability Awareness Month, let's bring in a speaker or workshop." And they're just looking at a check off the box.

We always say the clients that really want long-term engagements, because we do have long-term engagement where we work with the client long term to really help them first understand what are the narratives in their company. And how do we understand how are those narratives preventing from true inclusion, and how do people really share more of their true perspective, and how do we do journey mapping, and how do we then really build policies and procedures around that? It's a long-term engagement, it's not a switch of a button.

If inclusion was that easy, it would have been done. One workshop is not going to solve it because let's be real, all of us are part of creating those narratives. All of us, every single one of us. If we don't start intentionally looking both within, you know, "How am I contributing to those narratives?"

If we don't also start creating that space to share more of our true perspective and our thoughts around that, we're never going to achieve. So one workshop is never going to solve it. We always say that to our clients, "Great, we'll come in and do." And people leave those workshops and like, "Great, amazing, I've learned," but it's constant work. It's a journey.

So I think to your point, impact. There could be short-term impact that can be achieved in one workshop, which we do measure. But long-term impact can only be sustained when there's a sustainable kind of effort that's been developed from these workshops.

Josh Pearson : What are the barriers that you're seeing? You've traveled a lot of the world, you've gotten a sense of how different countries approach disability and other identities. Has that given you a better sense of how to tackle the work from a societal perspective?

Sara Minkara: Yeah, definitely. The greatest barrier until now, and this is not just disability inclusion, it's actually across all types of inclusion work, is that we approach inclusion from a technical lens. People think, "Okay, let's just make sure we have... Let's give white canes to blind kids." And there we go, they're going to learn how to be independent, right?

But what we don't understand is that ableism comes from this core aspect where society doesn't see the value of people with disability and what they have to bring forward. The narrative right now is many spaces charity narrative, at best, the human rights narrative. It's the right thing to educate, the right thing to employ people with disabilities, but we haven't come to a point where society says, "I want to include people with disabilities because when I don't, I lose out on that value."

Once society comes to that point, then everyone in society is going to start building from the get-go an inclusive space, an inclusive system. An example, websites from the get-go will be developed inclusively and fully accessible. But we haven't come to that point where society says, "There is a huge community that we're not tapping into and they have value to bring forward and we're losing out on that value."

So, our approach has changed, shifted from doing it from a very technical, "This is the right thing to do," to actually, "How do we bring value forward?" It's not just society, it's actually been people with disabilities as well believing in their value and their contribution. Because to be honest, if you're always hearing from the world, "You're a burden. You're asking too much. Oh my god, you're an add-on," you start believing that. There are points in my life where I do sometimes. It does get to me and sometimes I do feel like I'm a burden. So, it's both tackling the narrative on both sides and bringing that value-based aspect forward.

Josh Pearson : When it gets too heavy for you, what methods of self-care help you deal with that?

Sara Minkara: Hmm. That's a good question. Being out in nature, a long time. Spiritual things, I pray five times a day. Family, talking to friends one-on-one and just opening up. Just all those different things. Also, reading. To be honest, audio books, reading books takes me to another world and all of those things help me. I think, for me, in some ways it's really helpful to hear whether from a family member like my mom or a friend say, "It's okay. It's okay, if it's too much. Take a break. It's okay if you fail." And I've failed many times. Yeah.

Josh Pearson : I think that's such a radical message, especially in the disability community because that flies in the face of everything that we're taught in our rehab centers and all of that stuff as we are pushed to be successful and always on. So, that idea of embracing the times where it doesn't work and learning from them, I think, is just as important.

Sara Minkara: You also have to choose your battles in some ways. When I was in grad school, there were times where things were, some classes were inaccessible or I had to always find ways to make things accessible and it's exhausting. You feel like it's almost like a full-time job on top of being a student.

I've had to choose which battles to fight because ultimately, I told myself, "I want to enjoy my time here. I want to enjoy my time in school. I want to benefit like everyone else. It's not fair sometimes I have to always fight, fight, fight for my rights and fight for my..." I think taking always a high level view of things and seeing what's worth putting your energy into.

Josh Pearson : I very much agree with that and I think that's a really important strategy. Whether it's disability or other kinds of isms that we are dealing with.

When thinking about the idea of narrative and empowerment through connecting to this kind of shared disability experience and culture, I'm curious, in your own life, how has being a part of various types of communities played into your identity?

Sara Minkara: Yeah. I think that there's a few different things. One is, in everything and anything I do, I try to apply this whole concept of curiosity through a lens of compassion. You'll never address any ism or any kind of gap of communication if you don't initiate a dialogue. And then many times that dialogue might start off from a point of assumption, right? We always get that. Like as a person with a disability, I walk down the street and someone comes up to me and is like, "Oh my God, you must be living such a tough life." When I was younger, I used to get really frustrated and I would turn back, I'd be like, "Excuse you?" Like what are you saying kind of thing. I used to be very feisty in my response. We will never come to a point of addressing these isms if we don't create that bridge and that bridge of dialogue and really communicate on both sides.

Curiosity through a lens of compassion. How do I get to know you and where you're coming from, but through a lens of compassion, not assumption. And how do I also be curious and compassionate with myself and understand why did this person trigger me? Where is this coming from? Why am I getting upset with this? Why is this impacting?

I think the more we understand ourselves and our reactions and what things are impacting us, the more that we are going to move towards this journey of really embracing ourselves. I think always looking within, understanding, and always trying to communicate outwardly, but through a lens of compassion. That's been my approach with a lot of my work. Whether disability work or the work in the Muslim community or the work in gender work, whatever it is. Because let's be real, I walk into a space, I'm a blind hijabi Muslim woman. I'm dealing with a lot of isms at face value.

One time my professor said something very valuable, "If you enter a space and you truly believe you belong there and you believe that you have value to bring forward, that the people in front of you, even if they come with the first assumption, 'Oh my god, she is this or she's that, or she's that,' they're going to change their perception over time because they're going to see what narrative you are bringing forward."

But I'm only able to do that when I've really done the work internally and I truly believe that I have value to bring forward and I'm not going to let those isms impact who I am. Does that make sense, that cycle?

Josh Pearson : A hundred percent. Yes.

Sara Minkara: Yeah, yeah.

Josh Pearson : Let's turn to that internal work for a second. Let's say that somebody is new and we'll choose disability as the identity just because that's where we are in the community. Somebody is new to disability, either acquiring it as their own identity or they're new to thinking about it as a positive experience. Where does that internal work begin? How do you suggest somebody who's either looking to figure out what their voice is, how to add value to the conversation and take pride in who they are or to flip the coin, the able-bodied non-disabled individual who is starting to shift their perspective on what it means to adopt disability as an identity?

Sara Minkara: Yeah, that's a good question. I would start off with actually... Okay, let's say that disability identity, you've either acquired it new or you are trying to look at from the positive. I would first list all the narratives around that identity. When they think of that identity, what's the narratives that they hear in their mind? What do they think of that disability identity? And they should list all of those and then compare that. Also, what does the society see that narrative? And see how much how they're seeing their disability versus how society sees them and how much are they correlated.

I'll tell you one example, I always do this in a lot of spaces. I say, "Okay, a person with a disability is walking down the street, what is society thinking of them?" And I put that question out to the audience and what I hear, which is the truth, right? "Oh, pity, poor you, tough life, they can't, probably they need help." All these different things, right? So that's the narrative society sees disability still, that's the reality. Then compare it to, is that how you're seeing disability, your own disability identity? And listing those narratives out.

Then the third is, let's start pushing towards, "Well, how can I flip that and see my disability as positive? What are some positive things that have come from my disability identity?" And really working on listing those out.

I will say for me, my blindness has been one of my greatest blessings. In many ways. It's given me a purpose. It's given me so much. But I'll give you one example why it's been a blessing. It's because I walk down the street, I'm not able to see a lot of people's, you know, how people see me with my hijab, as a Muslim woman. I don't see any of those. Because of that, I'm easily able to take out if I need to make my prayer, go to the corner in the airport and start praying.

Whereas my fellow hijabi Muslim friend doesn't feel comfortable because she sees people staring at us. And she says, "No, no, no, no, I'm not comfortable." I'm like, "Well, I can't see them. There we go, I'm going to start praying." And she says, "This is one of your blessings and your strengths when you're blind because you can't see and you do your own thing. You're your true self, you do whatever." There is that freedom of being blind, when you're being blind. And that's one of my blessings. So I think having people list what are some of the strengths towards their disability identity?

Josh Pearson : When you first started to take this gamble and started a nonprofit and started to realize that people were responding to your message and that you were putting your voice out there, what was that like? And when thinking about specifically people who feel like they have a message or something they want to be able to give to the world, but they're not exactly sure where to start with that. What advice would you give?

Sara Minkara: It's been a journey, to be honest, of putting my voice out there. In the beginning it was a lot of, like the way I was able to build this movement was through a lot of friends and family that believed in the work. That's what usually, if you think about a lot of the organizations, they all start off with family and friends because they'll believe in you. Even a lot of times like, "Oh my God, what are you doing?"

But that gave me then the platform and the resources and the support to do some of the work. In the first few years, I ran ETI fully based on volunteers, fully. But it's all about, there's a really important public narrative model by Marshall Ganz that says, "Use the Self, Us, Now model." Which is you put out your mission and your purpose. You talk about how it's connected to you, then you try to connect it with the people that you're trying to work with and mobilize.

And then you just put a specific now action plan. You want to make sure whenever you want to make a difference in this world, you're never going to do it alone. It's going to be mobilizing people and communities to make that difference. You need to learn how to connect your story to them and how they can connect to it on a personal level and how you can do the now.

I think that over a period of time you start then mobilizing different communities, different people, into the change. And over time then you get resources and funding and you hire people as well. Then you start slowly growing, growing, growing. And you start building credibility and start building a history of impact. And you start building all these different things that leads you to different spaces and more spaces and more credibility. It's a positive cycle, but you need to start off with... I started off with no resources. My resources was my human capital, the friends, the family that believed in the work.

Josh Pearson : What level of importance do you think, given that there are various people, both consultants like yourself and larger governmental bodies or various agencies all trying to tackle this kind of inclusion work. Do you think partnerships between those different entities could help the work move quicker?

Sara Minkara: Definitely. I always say, "More hands together, the better," right? I think it goes back to what we said earlier, even on the organizational level, you can't do the work alone. You need to have a community. I was just say on another level, systemic level, you need the private-public sector and the nonprofit sector all coming together to address inclusion and make that change.

Doing it alone will never make a difference. Let's say a company is doing it well, spread that knowledge to other companies. Spread that work and how they're doing to other companies. So the more partnerships, the better. I think the more that we, people with disabilities, enter leadership roles and different leadership roles and try to change the narrative, people are going to start accepting that. I think that it's recognizing the narrative that we're putting out and really trying to be in spaces of impact. You don't need to just actually be in a leadership role, to be honest. You can make that impact anywhere and everywhere.

I will say, in any space that you're in, think about what narrative you are contributing to and how can you start making sure you're putting forward a value narrative. I also say one thing which is kind of controversial. Sometimes people ask me like, "Oh, if you ever can get back your eyesight, would you want to?" And I say, right now I say, "No." It's just become such a big part of who I am.

Am I being extreme? I don't know. And I say, "Well, it's almost like me telling you, you no longer have this identity," whatever the identity is, right? It's just a part of who I am and it's given me purpose. I love how I live my life and all that kind of stuff. So, I don't know if it's an extreme thought, but that's just how I feel right now. It just became, it's a big part of my identity.

Katie Crocker: Thank you for tuning in to Vision Towards Success. We would like to thank Sara Minkara for joining us on the program. If you'd like to learn more about Sara, visit her website www.saraminkara.com. That's www.S-A-R-A-M-I-N-K-A-R-A.com.

Speaker 3: Thank you for tuning in to Vision Towards Success. This program has been recorded and produced by Elena Regan and David Gonzalez from the Trades Win audio podcast team, in association with the Polus Center for Social & Economic Development. Funding for this program has been provided by the Libby Douvan Award from the Fielding Institute, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, and the Berry Savings Foundation. Additional episodes of this podcast can be found at www.poluscenter.org/tradeswin, or wherever you get your podcasts.