Episode 54 - The Sunflower - Inviting Accessibility Around the World - with Paul White

Clare Kumar: You never really know when something's going to change your life. I mean, I think about when I first learned about the term highly sensitive person and Elaine's work. Well, no, I don't because I can't remember exactly how that happened. In the same way, I don't know when it was that I stumbled upon the Hidden Disability Sunflower Program, but I am sure it was in my research around invisible challenges.

And in relationship to my own experience having multiple sclerosis, for which I'm very, very glad that the large majority of time has been in such that the illness has been invisible. You haven't been really able to tell that I have this disease. There have been moments where it has been very apparent, but I've been blessed that those have been few and far between. 

Also, as I recently was diagnosed with autism earliest, earlier this year, I have more fully stepped into this identity of having invisible challenges. And as I look around, boy, is it really clear to me that so many people do, I think in the UK, it's one in five people, globally, it's one in seven. And as we really understand the breadth of invisible challenges that exists, it's a lot of people.

And as we age, boy, at that population of percentage grows. So nevermind that I don't remember when I stumbled upon it. It has been life changing. I was immediately intrigued by the program and I reached out and spoke to one of the incredible staff members there and learn more about it. It took several months.

And I received an email from Paul White, who is the CEO of the organization saying, would I be interested in being the Canadian regional director? And if you know about the work that I do, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know, I've been advocating very seriously for the world to become a more hospitable place, whether it's through design, through culture, through products and services, experiences. Whether you're a customer and our employee, I think that we have a greater opportunity to design the world, to invite the richest contributions of more people. 

And this program, this Sunflower has had a profound impact. And I jumped at the chance to be part of an organization that is really connecting people to conversations that help them be at their best in daily life with those hidden challenges.

So wrap all of that, put it all together. And I am very, very proud of the work that this organization is doing. Paul gives us an idea of how the organization started. He talks about how it's grown very, very quickly and unexpectedly to him. You'll hear, you'll hear a bit about that journey. You'll also hear about some of the fantastic work that the Sunflower is doing with the proceeds from the memberships and the people, the organizations that join to actually enrich the lives of people with hidden disabilities around the world.

So, I hope you enjoy listening to this, and if you're a part of an organization that you think could benefit from being part of a program that really helps to foster an inclusive, safe culture, that, where people can speak up for what they need.  If this resonates with you at all, whether you're a customer or an employee, please get in touch with the program.

You can find contact information on the site or reach out to me, especially if you're in Canada, and I'll be happy to help you. I'm thrilled to see the organization growing very, very much so, and more people getting  the help that they need to really show up at their best. So enjoy the episode. 

Clare Kumar: You're listening to Episode 54 of the Happy Space Podcast. Today I'm talking with Paul White, CEO of the Hidden Disability Sunflower. It's a global program that is helping people with hidden challenges have better experiences in daily life and work. 

Clare Kumar: Paul White, thank you so much for joining me here on the Happy Space Podcast. 

Paul White: You're very welcome, Clare. I'm absolutely delighted to join you today. 

Clare Kumar: I'm thrilled too, because I've been part of the Hidden Disabilities Program now it's over two months and loving, loving not only the opportunity to step in a role of connecting people to the conversations that invite people with hidden challenges to have better experiences, but hearing the stories, the lived experience of people actually with the program.

I spoke to a mother yesterday and talking about her son traveling for the first time since the pandemic and what the Sunflower did with the crew on an airport tarmac. Recognizing and seeing this, the lanyard that he was wearing, choosing to wear and feeling confident and more comfortable wearing, they recognized him and they said, take your time, take your time.

And this is what it's about, right, Paul? So tell us, tell us how it got started. Where did this, where did this idea come from and how did it come to be? 

Paul White: So the Sunflower was started in 2016 with, with Gatwick Airport and Gatwick Airport recognised that whilst they could see people with visible disabilities coming through the airport, there was clearly people with non visible disabilities and challenges using the airport that they couldn't see and they couldn't support.

And I owned a printing company. And the printing company had the merchandise contract for Gatwick Airport. So one of my colleagues came back from Gatwick and said, I've had a meeting with somebody at Gatwick, and they've got this idea about using a symbol to be able to support people as they come through with non visible disabilities.

So we kind of threw it around in the office about different symbols, and eventually we came up with a Sunflower as a symbol. as to be able to people to visibly demonstrate they had a disability. We went back to the airport, we, with the Sunflower and said, look, this is the idea, this is the idea behind it.

What do you, what do you think? And they thought it was a great idea. They, they kind of then went through their airport advisory groups and some local charities to make sure that it was, it was on point and it was a usable symbol. And it became used, and they started to use it, and it was an instant success, Clare.

It was instantly successful with the employees, and it was equally successful with the passengers. 

And what happened with these people obviously went to an airport for one reason which was to travel and then they started to go to different places and they also started to want to use the Sunflower so the Sunflower kind of grew, grew from there.

So initially for me the truth be told, it really was, it was just a commercial decision. I just, we were selling Sunflower lanyards and we were selling a lot of Sunflower lanyards and I just thought we were just going to continue to sell Sunflower lanyards until Kingdom Come and I would disappear and live on an island in the middle of the South Pacific somewhere and being obviously happy.

And what happened is I started to get messages from people about how the Sunflower had changed their lives, about how, similar to the story that you've just mentioned, to have that. Using the Sunflower and using a symbol that I'd helped to create had enabled people to go out and, and do things they couldn't do before, to go out and to be, to be independent.

And there was one story, there was one email that I've still got that really resonated with me. And a guy emailed me, and he, what he he had dementia, or he has dementia. And he used to play walking football with his mates at the local sports venue. And he, his wife used to drive him to football and pick him up and drive him home.

Bus company recognised the Sunflower. The bus company joined the Hidden Disability Sunflower. And because the bus company recognised the Sunflower, he was able to independently get the bus on his own to go out and play football with his mates and independently get the bus back. And he told me that for the first time had given him his independence back, that he could do it independently.

And that really affected me as a person. And I thought to myself, you know what, this is bigger than me just selling a load of merchandise. This has actually got the, this is actually my opportunity, if you like, to do something good for society. So I kind of did a complete 180 in what we're doing as an organization.

I created the Hidden Disability Sunflower Program as a business. I then surrounded myself with people who had experience in disability and experience in working in the disability sector. And the program was launched and we launched from there and it's been, and it's been an amazing journey.

It's been, I've got to say, it's been very successful. The Sunflower now is, really has become the, the go to symbol for non visible disabilities across, across the globes. More than 40, 000 individual businesses now recognize and support the Sunflower. Now that's not places, there's significantly more locations, but that's individual businesses.

And lanyards to people of hidden disabilities across, across the globe. And similar to what you mentioned to me, to mention me now, literally every day, someone will, we will talk to somebody and tell, and they will tell us how the Sunflower has given them their independence, how the Sunflower has given them the ability to go out and be confident to do things that they necessarily wouldn't have done before, because now they know that people, the places they're visiting, they recognize what hidden disabilities are.

So that's how it started. That's how we began. And then we've kind of grown from, from there and here we are. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah, I love it. And I want to plant a seed to come back to because we're talking here a lot about people in their daily lives having more comfortable, confident, independent experiences. But the program is also great for employees to feel that psychological safety at work.

And I want to come back to that because that's an area I'm particularly interested being that I felt like I was designed out of work and I didn't have any language to talk about my sensory needs and how it was very debilitating for me actually to try and stay in that full design of work the way it was.

So I want to come back to that. But before I want to come back to that, it's been growing. It's how many countries now? 

Paul White: 40, 40 countries. 40 countries across the globe now recognized in some way. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah. And I learned about it last year and called in and spoke to the wonderful Annette and our team and learned more about the program and fell in love with it the more I learned.

One of my initial questions was is this a charity organization? And I wanted to pose the question to you because when I decided to come on board and work with you, I had to answer the question, like, is this, is this legit? Like, what is this organization about? Where does the money go? What does it do? 

And I think when you, when, when I put together the fact you're in 40 countries, and I know just some of the administrative effort to create a charity in Canada is significant and it becomes quite burdensome. I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about why it's not a charity and why.

Paul White: Sure. So we're not a charity. We are, in essence, a for profit organization. And the reason is because I had experience in running and managing conventional for profit businesses. And I really didn't have a huge amount of experience in the disability sectors to a certain extent.

My daughter's disabled. My daughter's autistic. Which meant obviously as a family, we had challenges that we, that as every family overcomes, but as an organization, I didn't really have that experience across the different sectors. So I created the organization as a for profit business.

And we gain our revenue as an organization through the businesses that subscribe to the Sunflower. So if you're going to be a Sunflower friendly business, we provide training to that organization as to the meaning of the Sunflower. What hidden disabilities are and then how to support and how to treat a person that's wearing a Sunflower, Sunflower lanyard.

And we charge them on that effect. We also ask those businesses to provide the Sunflower lanyards for free. And the reason that is, is because we don't want to financially penalize a person who wants to demonstrate they have a disability. So we ask those businesses, but if somebody doesn't want to go to that organization, they can go on our site and they can buy themselves a Sunflower lanyard.

But we, all of the revenue that we, we use, we generate is all plowed back into the hidden disability Sunflower program. And we use that revenue to really to grow them, to grow the business, the message and to continue to amplify the message of the Sunflower, but we also do what we can to help and to support disabled communities around the globe.

So an example of that Clare would be in Australia. The organization in Australia that provides the Sunflower is an organization called Bayley House. Now Bayley House is a charity that supports young adults with learning difficulties find employment in the community. And they use the Sunflower for all of the, that they do all the pick and pack and distribution across Australia, which means that the people within who are at Bayley House, they get re-employment, they get paid.

And they get experience for working in that  community when that's, when that's complete. We have a similar concept in the UAE in Abu Dhabi. So our chosen partner in Abu Dhabi is an organization called Topland that work out of another organization, which is the Zayed Higher organization.

Now, they again are very similar organization to Bayley House, but on a much bigger scale. They are all around getting young, young people. adults in the UAE into, into employment. But not only do they do the pick and pack, they've also created a Sunflower manufacturing plant. So they actually also manufactured the Sunflower lanyards there, which is super cool.

Paul White: So if anybody gets a chance to look on our site, you could see sort of how they're manufacturing and how they're manufacturing. So anybody that that obtains a Sunflower lanyard anywhere across the Middle East. That lanyard will be manufactured by one of our colleagues working within these, within these, these factories or within the, in the factory.

So there's just a couple of examples of how the Sunflower really is kind of giving back to their communities. Oh, and finally, we've currently got a new, a current initiative that we're working with, with the pride organizations across EU. So the PRIDE organizations are managed by an organization called EPOA and we've got a a collaboration with, with EPOA where we recognize that a lot, some of the PRIDES, they wasn't as accessible to disabled people as they, as they could be.

So we provide free Sunflower merchandise and free Sunflower products to any European pride across, across Europe. They can obtain all the training and the merchandise they can obtain for free to ensure that their Pride is accessible to, to disabled, to disabled people. So again, they're just three examples of how we've used the revenue that we've generated as an organization to, to kind of give back to the to the disabled communities across the globe.

Clare Kumar: I love it. Well, and there's another way too, because you will, you invite members in Canada charitable members to be part of the organization with a very low fee. And in Canada, at least they have an opportunity to potentially resell the lanyard so they can serve, they can provide and recover some of the costs of the charities not out of pocket providing the service to absolutely the Sunflower gives charities the ability to generate revenue.

Paul White: It gives, because the Sunflower is so, so, so globally recognized, there's a huge number of charities that are reselling, they're the only organizations we allow to resell the Sunflower products. And a lot of times they will have their own logo, their own symbol. It can be relevant to their own communities, whether that's autism or dementia or whatever that, whatever that is.

And then they're able to send that out to their own community, gain that revenue, and obviously then continue to do the work they need to do. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah, yeah, because there are costs, always, to do all of this work, so we need to, we need to make sure the money is flowing to support all of these, these efforts.

Yeah, I want to come back to that question I had about employees. And as you think about the growth of the program and you're seeing it evolve in different places, there are different views on inclusivity work in different countries. And I'm wondering what you sense is happening now, what you're noticing about organizations and their care of the employee as well as the customers, which is very obvious to me that that connection, but the employees, what's happening there.

Paul White: But when the Sunflower was created, it was really created around customer facing organizations. That's really what it was created for. It was created for an airport environment, but it worked just as well whether that was a retail environment, whether that was a shopping center, whether that was a sports venue.

It all worked on the same, on the same thing. See a person wearing a Sunflower lanyard, understand that person has a non visible disability. You don't need to know what it is. Give that person time, care, patience and understanding. And just create an environment that is welcoming and accessible for disabled people whatever their condition, whatever the barriers that that person faces. So it was really clear. 

But what we didn't really realize is how the Sunflower would impact businesses that aren't customer facing, how the Sunflower would really be able to, to, to create or to start to create a culture within an organization that enables people to disclose that they have a disability without that fear of stigma, without that stigmatization that, that is, that, that naturally comes a lot of time with, with, with disclosure.

So the Sunflower has been, has been, has been really key to organizations to start to begin that culture where that organization feels comfortable, can talk, can demonstrate that they are inclusive, demonstrate they are accessible and can encourage people to disclose they have a disability. Now, once somebody discloses they have a condition, it's been that organization's duty now to make those reasonable adjustments that could and should be made to not only make that person's day better, but you get the best out of that employee.

It's just a win win. It's just such a no brainer for organizations. By supporting your colleagues. By enabling your colleagues to, to disclose and to make those reasonable adjustments without that fear that they're going to be thought differently by their colleagues, or that future job opportunity may not be there because they disclosed.

By seeing past that, you get such a more buy-in from that, from that employee, and that can only really lift productivity of that organization and it lifts the whole mantra of that organization in general. I mean, I'm yet to meet someone Clare who hasn't got a touch point with someone with disability, whether that's yourself, whether that's a family, whether that's a colleague, whether that's a nanny, but everybody has got a touch point to somebody.

So everybody gets the opportunity to be involved in regards to the Sunflower because it supports all disabilities across all levels. And it's a safe space for businesses to start their journey to become a disability company. We're certainly not the end of the journey, but in a lot of places we're that start because so many businesses, they're really struggling with that first step.

They seem to get so hung up with terms and conditions and policy and every thought of procedures. And the reality is they just need to start. They just need to start that journey. And the Sunflower has demonstrated time and time again, that it's such a great place to start that journey. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah, I've heard comments about fear of having to spend too much money, fear of not knowing how to have the conversation.

There seems to be a lot of fear of the unknown. And I think what I've loved in learning about the program is finding the robust support that's in the program, especially for the corporate level membership. So that there we have, you know, we have information on disabilities in the program. So you can learn, you know, what the condition is and what it's like to live with that challenge.

But then there's a whole section just for corporate members on what workplace considerations could look like, what workplace accommodations or adjustments. And if you were to put dollar values beside a lot of them, they're not expensive. There's patience. There's, you know, a culture of invitation, permission, flexibility.

There are a lot of things that don't cost anything. And this starts the conversation, which is. 

Paul White: And a lot of the time in my experience, it really is, exactly that. It's just having that conversation. I mean the reality is, is you've met one person with autism. You've met one person with autism.

Every different person you may, is going to have different challenges, different barriers and need different accommodations. But having that conversation and showing that level of respect and compassion and empathy and interest and absolute interest showing that interest in, in how that person lives their life, what that organization can do.

And that's exactly right, as you say, it doesn't have to be that you have to move the building three feet to the left, it can be just such a simple, simple thing that you can do that demonstrates your support for that person and businesses everywhere are thirsty for diversity now. All business you talk about is, but the reality is organizations that are employing more disabled people than they think they are.

It's just that that person's, that, that person's disability is not visible and that person has chosen not to disclose. So how do you become more diverse? Well, using the Sunflower is a simple way, or is one of the tools you can use to start that conversation to encourage people to be able to disclose.

And then you can become that much more diverse organization, which is, and in general, it then means that you're going to be much more approachable for organization and much more relatable. 

Or for your, for your customer price. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah. It helps your hiring, your retention and your customer service.

So yeah, I lovely, lovely. Tell me a little bit about, now it's in 40 countries. What are you noticing about the conversations that are happening, the language that's happening? I'm sensing there's a lot of nuance. I mean, as I was born in the UK, we spell things differently. We use different terms. We don't use, you know, the, our company is the Hidden Disabilities scheme.

But we don't use the word scheme in Canada. It's sort of, it has a bit of a negative connotation, but tell me a little bit about what you're noticing in the conversation around language and just how nuanced we have to be as an organization making sure that what we're doing lands where we are. 

Paul White: Well, I think the fact that we were called, or we are called the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Scheme kind of demonstrates that I didn't realize how big the Sunflower would be when it was first, first created.

I had no real aspirations that it would become this global organization. It really was around supporting people in the UK. It was about seeing the, something that we, that I could actively and physically do to try and change the disability landscape in my own, own small way. So I had no, it was completely irrelevant that scheme meant scam in the US and Canada.

And obviously if I were to try to rewind it now, it certainly wouldn't have been called the Hidden Disability Sunflower Scheme, but we are kind of quite aware of where we are. And the connotations around scheme and hidden and non visible and non apparent are always there for us as an organization. I mean, the, I mean, as a global organization, we obviously have to accept, and we do accept, cultural nuances.

We have to accept cultural nuances in all, in all manners, whether that's on the merchandise and the products that we provide, how we provide the training, in what form, as in how that looks, and certainly in the language that we use. I mean, as an example of that, again, is in the UAE disabled people are called people of determination in the UAE, in the UAE.

So a disabled person doesn't exist across the Middle East. It's been rephrased into people of determination. So when, obviously when we're talking about disability in, in the Middle East, we talk about people, people with determination. I can't remember how we phrase it with Canada, if it's disabled people or a person with disabilities.

Again, we obviously have to ensure that we, our languages is on point and our language is, is respectful and, and, and, and relevant. From my perspective, I accept I make mistakes. I accept that I make, I will make mistakes in regards to language. But as long as, but as long as in, in, from my perspective, as long as I kind of learn from those, those, those mistakes is I try to treat people with the, the, the respect.

and the kindness that they, that they, they deserve and that they should receive. I'm going to guess that all those, those issues can, can, can be ironed out as a, as an organization. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah, and I don't think, I don't perceive them as issues. I perceive them as long as we're in conversation, as points of conversation.

I had a whole podcast discussion actually about the language of neurodiversity because even in that world, neurodiverse, neurodivergent, do we like divergent? The idea of being divergent? Do we want typical? There's, there's a whole wealth of language to consider, and I talked to Judy Singer, who creator of the term.

I talked to Pasha Marlow. I've talked to Theo Smith and everyone has slightly a different take. But the big takeaway is if someone feels comfortable identifying themselves in a certain way. Have at it. Even talking to Elaine Aron about the term highly sensitive people and the term neurodivergency. Well, how do you feel about using the term?

Use whatever makes you feel comfortable. So I like that inclusivity in spirit. And I like to also point out too, it's very personal. So I have MS. I have MS. I'm autistic. I use both. You know, right? So I think it's I think it's an evolving area as well with language. We'll see, we'll see what changes and we'll dance with it to make sure we're resonating with the communities we're respecting and trying to support.

Paul White: The phrase that we use as an organization is the Sunflower. The Sunflower is as an organization, that's, that's who we are. We use the word, the term, the Sunflower because the Sunflower is a globally known flower. It's a globally known symbol. Obviously it's gender, it's gender neutral. 

So we, we, we kind of don't, we kind of don't use the same phrase, hidden disabilities, wherever we, we talk about the Sunflower.

As, as who we are and an organization. And that is by using the term Sunflower, we able, we're able to cut through rest of that because obviously, as I say, the Sunflower is a globally known, globally known phrase. So when we, everything we, all the language that we use whenever we talking about hidden disabilities and the hidden disability Sunflower, we can, we, it's always the Sunflower is this and the Sunflower does this.

Clare Kumar: Yeah, easy to remember, easy to pass on, which is important, and remains respectful. I love that. You talked a little bit earlier before we started talking in this interview around Sunflower environment, Sunflower friendly environments. And I wonder if you can tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Paul White: So one of the the goals of the Sunflower has really been to how do we create an environment that all organizations can join, whether that's the largest blue chip organizations and the largest banks down to your local cafes and your local dry cleaners because all of these organizations are equally as important to someone with a non visible disability.

If you are a Sunflower wearer, it's equally as important that you are given that time to order your coffee, as well as you're given your time to go and do your transactions at the local bank. So we've really worked hard with certain environments to try and create these Sunflower friendly spaces.

So again, in a similar way that we're working with EPOA, with the pride organizations. We've made that region as autonomous as we could to, to, to manage and support the Sunflower. And then we've encouraged businesses of all sizes to join the Sunflower, which in essence then encourages people, people to visit.

So an example of this is the Isle of Wight of the UK. So people in Canada may not know what the Isle of Wight is, but it's a tiny little, tiny little dot of an island that is just off the coast of the south coast of the UK. And we worked with the Isle of Wight to do exactly that. So we worked with the local council, we're working with them to create a Sunflower friendly island.

So whether it was the local pub or it was a guest house, All of these organizations had access to the Sunflower training and they all had the ability to add their location to our map of Sunflower friendly locations. And then what we did is, the Isle of Wight is a very big tourist location across the UK.

We went out to the Sunflower community and we said to the Sunflower community, if you visit the Isle of Wight, it's not only the larger organizations that typically support the Sunflower, it's every organization, no matter where you go, no matter what you're doing, if you're a Sunflower wearer, you wear your Sunflower, you will be supported walking down that street by wearing your Sunflower.

So we went out to the Sunflower community and we advertise the fact that the the Isle of Wight is a Sunflower friendly, friendly island. And it's been really successful. It's been great. It's been a really successful environment and a really successful sort of experience for us as an organization to create that.

And we're using that, we're kind of using that same template in other places now. So we've done the same in Jersey. We've done the same in Guernsey and we're working on the same this same similar theme at the Isle of Man. So we're kind of using that sort of, like, that way to, to try and involve all businesses, whether they're large or small, to, to support their disabled communities.

Clare Kumar: How many people are you training in that kind of what's the commitment there in terms of size and training? 

Paul White: I think it was about two hundred, there was about 250 businesses  joined the training. So it was, it was fairly, it was fairly large and I'm not sure what the don't know what the population of the Isle of Wight is.

It's not many, it's, it's in the region. But it's, but it's a tourist island Clare, so people go there on holiday. You get the Isle of Wight, you have to take either the Isle of Wight ferry, or you have to take the Isle of Wight hovercraft. Both are Sunflower friendly. So both, so from the minute you get on, so you have to take the ferry or the hovercraft.

So from the minute you climb on board on your ferry or hovercraft, to the time you're over on the island on your holidays, as a Sunflower wearer, you can be confident that the vast majority of organizations recognize and understand that not all disabilities are visible. 

Clare Kumar: That's an amazing, amazing initiative.

I love that. Do you think that in, if we're thinking of the community of people with hidden challenges and non visible disabilities, do you think there's an expectation now I'm sensing that it's rising in Canada to be treated well when you go into a store or are traveling. Do you think that, and that expectation relates to the size of the place that the bigger the company, the greater the expectation that company would have had the resources to learn about the effective way to show up and be a supporter and an ally.

Paul White: Yeah, I generally believe in 2024, businesses need to open their eyes to their disabled, to the disabled communities. The reality is well, okay, using the figures across the UK, is one in five people in the UK have some form of disability, and 80 percent of those disabilities are not visible, so that's 12 million people in the UK, globally one in seven people across the globe have a non visible disability, so that's over a billion people.

So how can these businesses ignore their, the disabled, the disabled communities? And absolutely right, I'm, I'm all about fairness. All about fairness in society is all about people having an equal footing in society and an equal voice and equality in, in general. So I don't see it's too difficult for organizations to make, and the vast majority of the, of the accommodations that people need, really is, as you kind of touched about in regards to the B2B businesses, they're not that difficult.

It's all about making a welcoming environment, welcoming space. Don't use the don't use the disabled toilet somewhere to store all of your boxes. Sort of like, mate the disabled toilet there is there for disabled people to use that, to use that, use that toilet. 

Make sure that there are accessible parking spots that are very close to your entrances.

I don't think these adjustments are too difficult for organizations to make. And the reality is it raises the bar for all organizations, because once one business within that sector sees another, another business being much more inclusive and much more accessible, they cannot afford to be left behind.

Now there's a huge push in the UK around the Purple Pound and the Purple Pound, if people don't haven't heard of the Purple Pound, is the the Purple Pound is the amount of expenditure by disabled people that across the UK. So that's called the Purple Pound.

There's a huge, push here in the UK, if you like, for organizations to tap into the Purple Pound. How do you get, because they've seen that disabled customers really are the most loyal customers that they can find. Because once a disabled customer finds a brand that supports them.

Finds a brand where they can, where they reflect their life, which basically a lot of times means employ more disabled people within your environment. You will see those people and that obviously will resonate with you as a disabled person. So there's a huge push in the UK  around the Purple Pound and what that, what that is doing, that encourages more and more businesses to make sure that they are accessible to disabled people and they are.

Naturally, he's going to create a fair society, society for all. And generally globally, obviously we are as an organization. We are global from looking at global, the countries that we, we're working in, they really are on a different path, different path on their actual or a different stage of their journey.

In regards to how include, how accessible they, they really are to disabled people. But the reality is they are kind of all starting to work towards the same goal. There may be, there may be a different part of their journey. But really businesses, global businesses really have woken up to the idea, to the fact that there are, that one in seven of us have got some form of non visible disability and they are making a huge mistake by not supporting that, that element of their customer base.

So I kind of really do think that It will take, obviously it will take a long, it will take a long time, and certainly with what the Sunflower has helped to do in my view, it's helped to normalise disability in, in society. It's helped to remove that kind of stigma where, that, you know, that people, that fear of showing a disability is a weakness.

It's really kind of removed, removed that. Because from my perspective, what I've seen, the people that I know with hidden disabilities, of which I know a number of people, they don't want my sympathy. They do want is they want my understanding, they want me to be more understanding. 

Paul White:  And I think that's the same with, with most people.

And they need people to be understanding. And if I give them that level of understanding, they're able to continue their day and go about their day in a much better fashion than they could have, could have done before. And that really is the mantra that we really are using when talking to businesses on a global perspective.

Clare Kumar: Yeah, it makes so much sense from the Purple Pound perspective is looking at the customer spend. We look at the equivalent in terms of employee attraction, retention, those dollars are really significant too. So is there any, is that, has that been correlated to the employee experience as well, or is it really around customer spend?

Paul White: Well, the Purple Pound really is around customer spend there's kind of two parts to this as an organization. It's the Purple Pound is there to, to encourage organizations to be accessible to disabled people. Look, that's how much disabled people spend. If you make your, your, you make your stores accessible, then you've got the opportunity to, to tap into that, to tap into top line, top line hits.

Paul White: Yeah. And then, and then the other side of as we've already touched about is how do we support our colleagues. It's not just our customers that have got long visible disabilities, it's our colleagues. And kind of the way the hope with the Sunflower is if one of the store staff are wearing a Sunflower product, us as consumers can also see that and also give that person the extra time, care, patience, and understanding.

It goes two ways. 

Clare Kumar: It really does. And that is the whole point. What, what clients are telling me, our members are telling me right now is they love how simple it is. They love that it's easy to, to train the staff. It's easy to have the conversation. And even though there's, I think over a thousand hidden disabilities talked about on the website right now, no one's expected to be an expert in all of them.

No one's, you're only being expected to say, can I help you? Yeah. And what do you need, right? So the bar is low as far as lifting, but the impact is really high. Any closing words, Paul, for someone who's thinking, gosh, this program sounds amazing. What would I do? No matter where I am, what should someone do if they want to take a first step to either get a lanyard for themselves, you know, that expresses their what they need or identify an organization anywhere in the world, what would they do?

Paul White: So the easiest way to find us really would be just to Google Hidden Disability Sunflower. You will come across our website in some way, and you will then be able to see the work that we are doing with organizations, how we go about promoting disability across the globe, and how your organization can get involved.

So Google the Sunflower or go to hdSunflower.com and one of our, one of our, local representatives of which Clare, you are one of those, will be delighted to speak with you. 

Clare Kumar: Most definitely so. Paul, thank you so much for joining me today and actually giving me an even fuller understanding of the Sunflower journey.

Paul White: You're very welcome, Clare. Thank you for inviting me on.