Who we are
Disability is created by barriers — not by people
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises that disability is an evolving concept arising from the interaction between people with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. This is the Convention’s approach in its Preamble, paragraph (e).Read the UN Convention (accessible PDF).
The social model
Disabled people face exclusion when environments, attitudes, institutions and systems create barriers to equal participation. Removing those barriers advances independence, dignity and inclusion.
Universal Design
Universal Design anticipates diverse needs from the outset so environments, services and technologies work for as many people as possible. Reasonable accommodation complements Universal Design by addressing individual access requirements.
Disabled women’s leadership
Disabled women are not a footnote. We lead the conversation about our own lives, rights, and futures — because we are the experts on our own experience.
“If it is not accessible, it is not equal.”
Access is a right, not a privilege. Access and accessibility are not the same: reaching a service does not mean it can be used independently, effectively or equally. We advocate for both access to services and accessibility in their use.
Why we exist
Our Founder
Voice of Disability NPC was founded in 2010 by Fadila Lagadien — a disabled Black woman, quadriplegic wheelchair user, and disability rights advocate of forty years.
Following a car accident in December 1985, Fadila was left in a hospital corridor through the night while her white partner received immediate care. Her spinal cord was severed. A specialist unit existed but was not available to her under apartheid. She was given seven years to live.
She is sixty-seven. She has spent four decades fighting structural discrimination — contributing to South Africa’s disability legislation, building organisations for disabled women, and teaching herself every new technology that could expand what was possible for a quadriplegic woman with one working hand.
She holds an MBA from the University of Liverpool, which admitted her through Recognition of Prior Learning — recognising decades of self-taught expertise that South African institutions refused to credit.
She is now an AI-Driven Accessibility & Disability Inclusion Innovator, applying AI to make the movement faster, louder, and harder to ignore.
Read her full statement →Four decades of impact
Years of disability rights advocacy
Voice of Disability NPC
A registered non-profit organisation in South Africa. Programmes, rights clinics, and accessible materials — all led by and for disabled women.