Fighting Chance Mantra: It is unacceptable that bright, intellectually able Australians are prevented from working in interesting jobs and pursuing their ambitions because of their physical disabilities. We plan to change this.

Their mission: Create. Employment opportunities for people with physical disabilities in our society are almost non-existent. As a consequence, thousands of talented, bright young people today have little or no choice other than to pass their post-school years in day centers and community access programs. Even worse, many have no option but to sit around at home all day.

Their challenge: There is no inherent reason why people with physical disabilities cannot work; it just requires lateral, creative thinking to overcome the various obstacles.

Who they are:  A youth-led charity working towards one goal, a better future for young Australians with physical disabilities.

Disaboom:  Laura, you have spent your career helping others and disability seems to be your passion. Do you have someone close to you with a disability?

Laura O’Reilly: “Yes, my passion for people with disabilities is born out of lifetime of watching the struggles and unquenchable spirit of my younger brother, Shane who had cerebral palsy.  He died six months ago at the age of 21.”

Disaboom: Tell us about your organization, Fighting Chance

Laura O’Reilly: “Fighting Chance was born out of years of observation of the struggles and challenges facing my youngest brother, Shane, was had cerebral palsy. My other sibling, Jordan, and I observed that, as young people in our 20s, we were going out getting jobs, finding places to live and having a social life, but all of these “pillars of normalcy” were outside Shane’s reach.  It wasn’t because he wasn’t interested in doing those things, or intellectually unable to do those things – in fact he was extremely smart – but he was very physically disabled and that was preventing him from having those opportunities. We also observed that there was a bias in the provision of opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities, particularly in the field of employment.

“There was a disability revolution that took place in the world from the 1950s onwards, where the emergence of employment opportunities, based on menial labor, were heavily weighted toward people who had use of their bodies. And Shane didn’t have use of his body, but he had use of his mind. We wanted to think of a way to harness that, to be able to use that, while being realistic to the fact that he really couldn’t do many physical things. 

“We feel that my generation, people living in this moment of time, have a real opportunity to do something acutely profound in the area of employment for the physically disabled, because technology is so new and provides the bridge for people like Shane to have a chance for employment.”

Disaboom:  What is your concept, and what type of employment opportunities are you developing?

Laura O’Reilly: What we’re doing is developing a range of social enterprises, which are rooted in careful use of technology. Each of our concepts is a model that can be duplicated across the globe.

“What we’re going to do is create large, successful companies which employ able-bodied people, mildly disabled people, severely disabled people and profoundly disabled people, and give each individual a place in the company structure whereby even a person who has small capacity, maybe just five percent, nonetheless is able to contribute to that level.

“My feeling is that this will be the model of companies in the future.  You’ll have a variety of different people working side-by-side.  We feel that waiting around for corporates to do that themselves is no solution. We want to lead by example and start creating the opportunities ourselves which show that people who seem “unemployable” by today’s standards, are not unemployable at all given the right opportunity and the right environment.”

Laura O’Reilly is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and is currently studying postgraduate law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She has worked with various not-for-profits for over 10 years, including Oxfam and Amnesty International. Most recently, Laura spent two years leading the Cambridge team of the Global Poverty Project in the UK which works towards the eradication of extreme poverty in our world. However, disability is Laura’s passion, born out of a lifetime of watching the struggles and unquenchable spirit of her younger brother, who has cerebral palsy

Fighting Chance’s Enterprise Program is an innovative, forward-thinking, internet-based venture which creates employment opportunities for people with physical disabilities. The Program’s approach is very simple: instead of expecting square pegs to fit into round holes, we design the hole to fit the peg. The result is an interesting, challenging and fulfilling career for the individuals involved, as well as unleashing untapped productivity as people begin to be defined by their abilities, not their disabilities.

To learn more, go to: www.fightingchance.org.au