Emily Mason is looking for a role to complement her leadership skills in policy implementation. Photo / Bevan Conley
Emily Mason is looking for a role to complement her leadership skills in policy implementation. Photo / Bevan Conley
A Whanganui jobseeker is calling for employers to be more flexible about people with disabilities after an accident turned her life on its head.
Policy expert Emily Mason has lived with daily physical pain for 14 years since her accident.
"People think we are our disabilities. They look at usand see nothing else," Mason said.
"Even though I have all this knowledge and experience, no one wanted me because of my disability. I felt too broken."
With a background in policy implementation surrounding the New Zealand Bill of Rights and Te Tiriti principles at the Treasury, Mason said it took her 14 years to feel confident again about her expertise.
She said Workbridge Whanganui helped her get back into work and she was now undergoing negotiations for a role with Te Whatu Ora, Health New Zealand.
Workbridge is the largest New Zealand-owned employment service for people with a disability or health condition.
The independent disability-owned and led organisation, which delivers training and employment programmes to the community, began in 1931 as The Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment League to offer rehabilitation and employment to those injured in wartime.
Mason said she needed a role where she could get stuck in at 20 hours a week.
"I don't need more than that to make a change," she said.
"Movement for me every day is painful, and every step I take is an effort so the mahi I do has to be important or I don't give a s*** because it's literally causing me pain to work."
Mason said she could no longer work 40-hour weeks due to the physical and mental toll from an accident 14 years ago.
In 2008, her foot got caught in ripped carpet while she was walking downstairs holding her cousin's baby.
"I couldn't do a thing except save the baby, which I did, but in the course of that I broke both tibia and fibula bones at the ankle. Not a fracture, a complete snap.
"After my injury, I managed to sustain work for about six years but I was in constant pain and could barely walk."
She said her employer at the time saw her struggling, but could not be flexible with her situation.
"I tried everything to convince my employer at the time to let me either work from home or part-time, but they wouldn't let me after working there for over 13 years."
After having to leave her job six years ago, Mason moved to Whanganui and tried to find a job, but to no avail.
By the time she went to Workbridge Whanganui for help a year ago, life had got so dark she was suicidal, she said.
"Jo Rowan was the person I directly worked with and she really listened to my hurt and told me she believed in me."
Mason said Rowan saw things in her that she had forgotten about herself since the accident, and owning her CV was a big part of regaining her confidence.
"Now it feels like every lock is being unlocked, and doors are opening."
Her first job through Workbridge was as a disability support co-ordinator for the Covid-19 vaccination rollout, which Workbridge advocated for with the district health board so the fulltime role could be split into two part-time roles.
Mason then moved on to the Castlecliff Community Hub & Library, writing their processes and policies. She is a trustee at the Whanganui Kai Hub and is helping to write its policies.
"I'm still fighting this injury and living off the bones of my ass, but I'm the happiest I've ever been," Mason said.
"Through adversity comes great knowledge and I could have never learned what I have in a classroom."
Workbridge chief executive Jonathan Mosen said so much potential was left untapped because of the stigmas and naivety about disability.
"Our sector's leadership is disproportionately non-disabled, and people still consider disability a 'problem to solve'," Mosen said, who is one of only a few disabled chief executives in the country.
Workbridge chief executive Jonathan Mosen says much potential is left untapped because of the stigmas and naivety about disability. Photo / NZME
"We need more disabled leaders and decision-makers, so our participation isn't dependent on a non-disabled person's belief in us."
Mason said she worked with a young woman who was highly qualified and had done everything one would expect someone to do to get a decent job.
"She's a change-maker in the making, getting disregarded and put down because she's in a wheelchair and it's all people see," Mason said.
"She's been put on the end of a phone, but that's not where her talents are. This sort of thing has to change."
Mosen said disabled people shaped today's world in ways often overlooked.
"Audiobooks, text messaging, voice dictation and electric toothbrushes are all things now taken for granted, but they were first designed for disabled communities," Mosen said.
On Wednesday, Workbridge released a book mapping its journey and the societal changes in the understanding of, and response to, disabled people over time.
"The impact disabled people have had on Aotearoa's history is largely invisible, and we want to issue a challenge to businesses, decision-makers and leaders," Mosen said.
