S4 Ep7: Susie Hart, the creative activist who is changing attitudes towards disability

The Women of the Year Podcast. Celebrating the extraordinary

Life for someone with disabilities is challenging wherever you live, but even more so if that’s in the developing world. As our 2010 Window on the World award winner discovered when she was living and working in Tanzania. Seeing people with disabilities begging on the streets, Susie put her degree in textiles to use and set up a social enterprise to provide crafts training and employment for people with disabilities. Starting with three deaf trainees and budget of just £400, by the time Susie left Tanzania ten years later, her centre, which included training facilities and an award-winning cafe, was working with over 120 people with a huge range of disabilities. Returning to the UK wasn’t the end of Susie’s efforts to create opportunities for people with disabilities. Very far from it. Her work now reaches communities here and not just in Tanzania but in Equador and Peru too.
In this episode Susie reveals the reason why she is able to specially connect with the people she works with, how she met the challenge of being a young white woman trying to bring about change in an African country, who the childhood heroine of hers was who nominated her for her award and the surprising skill that brings her so much joy.