Sydenham’s Leah Hobson with guide dog Ellie. 73917 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By Laura Wakely
LEAH Hobson just wants to be seen for who she is – capable, intelligent and a lover of films, reading and wine.
She would also like the National Disability Insurance Scheme to be rolled out across Australia, to make it easier for disabled people to gain employment and for a fairer Disability Support Pension that involves less hurdles and more assistance.
And don’t think she won’t get those things.
The Sydenham resident was born partially blind and partially deaf, due to her mother’s rubella while pregnant, and has been fighting for her rights to be equal to any able-bodied person ever since.
The fight is something she inherited from her mother, who was passionate about her daughter being able to complete school in mainstream education in the 1980s, with the added pressure of living in a small New South Wales country town, where support services were scarce.
“She really fought strongly for me,” Leah said.
“Because of that, I never even questioned whether I should be in a mainstream school or whether I should go off to university and get my degree.”
After doing a bit of volunteer work here and there, taking paid work whenever she could, Leah realised she had developed a passion and a skill in breaking down policy into “clear, simple” language.
Now, in her role as National Policy Officer at the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Leah is a voice for people with a whole variety of different disabilities and different needs.
It’s her job to carry their message to the Government and help shape better policy around disability, whether it’s education, health or employment.
Her work has taken her from Kalgoorlie to Gippsland, to Fiji, and, in a fortnight, she’ll head to Thailand for the United Nation’s Asia-Pacific disability conference.
Just don’t call her a hero.
“If we have society that sets up expectations that people with disability are going to kind of need to be looked after all the time and that they can’t make their own decisions… then that will perpetuate a situation where it’s true,” Leah said.
“The more we see people with disability out in the community, striving to do things, living their daily lives, the less of a shock to the system it will be.”
It’s not that Leah is a “walk over” or has a “chip on her shoulder” – sometimes it’s simply hard.
The day she lost all of her hearing sticks out.
“There was no way for me to put into words what that felt like emotionally. I could talk about the practical differences, but not how sad I felt that I would never hear music again,” she said.
But what scares her most is what will happen if she loses her memory.
It’s her coping mechanism, the thing she uses to remember things likes 45 minute speeches, because reading them is almost impossible.
Leah knows this fear is why people don’t want to think about disability.
“It’s a bit confronting, ultimately, it could be you.”
This week is National Disability Awareness Week and Brimbank City Council is holding a full program of events. For more information visit www.brimbank.vic.gov.au
