From little things – the WaterAble story part 1.
What is WaterAble?
It’s a network for people with disability and their allies in the Australian water industry. What does that actually mean? As the founder of WaterAble I’ve been answering that question for nearly six years. At its heart, WaterAble is about bringing people with disability together and empowering them to speak up about disability and pursue a meaningful career in the water industry. That also means WaterAble works with the industry to improve disability inclusion for workers and customers. Simple right? No, not really. But everyone involved in WaterAble can be really proud of all that we have achieved and the bright future for the organisation.
Getting started
In 2019 I’d been a board director in the Victorian water industry for nearly four years. I was also a member of the VicWater Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee. The Victorian water industry had a real focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. But nobody seemed very interested in talking about disability in a meaningful way. During that time Pride in Water was established by the brilliant Brendan Moore and Jacquie Moon at Yarra Valley Water. These two trailblazers forged a path for the LGBTQIA+ community in water. I was determined to create a similar group around disability.
So, I got to work. The group needed a name, a website and logo, a democratic member-based governance structure, and information about what we were trying to do. My approach was: build it and they will come. I pulled in favours left, right and centre – The website and logo got done by my brother-in-law and accessibility expert Erin Beel from Melbourne Water. I received feedback and advice on the draft WaterAble rules and moral support from people like Jill Sears – then the Diversity and Inclusion lead at Melbourne Water, and Jo Lim – now Chief Executive at VicWater.
Then the pandemic hit in early 2020 and everything got put on hold as we all adjusted to the new reality.
If not now, then when? If not me, then who?
Once everyone had adjusted to being online all the time, we started planning the official launch. I wasn’t wild about the idea of being the face of WaterAble, but it was me or nobody. So, on 28 July 2020, when the number of reported COVID cases in Victoria was at around 720 (which seemed terrifying at the time) we launched WaterAble. VicWater said it was the most well-attended online forum they had run. We did a “You can’t ask that” panel session with people who had very different kinds of disability. We got an amazing response from the audience, with lots of interesting questions. My epiphany was that, though I absolutely hated event management, this WaterAble thing was bringing me a true sense of purpose.
Getting leadership buy-in
In the run-up to the official launch, I asked every Managing Director in Victorian water corporations to partner with WaterAble and make a public statement of support. I published these statements of support on social media. This was my idea of hell, and truly a labour of love. At that stage, LinkedIn made me feel squeamish – all that tawdry “look at me” self-promotion. Also, I’m a blind woman who hates typos but now finds it difficult to completely eradicate them from anything I type. Anyway, it certainly kept me busy during those long days of 2020, painstakingly putting these statements on the WaterAble LinkedIn feed one day at a time and getting a dopamine hit when anybody noticed.
My biggest concern with WaterAble was that nobody would actually want to participate. If it ended up being just me speaking for WaterAble, pretty soon it would seem like a vanity exercise, and that was a deal breaker for me. Sometimes you get lucky, though. Enter, Donald Hughan. Donald contacted me not long after the official WaterAble launch. He said, “Someone here at Goulburn Murray Water told me to ring you about WaterAble.” I was thrilled to meet Donald. An awesome dude from Rochester who was prepared to become Deputy Chair of WaterAble. Not long after that, Matthew Iversen and Lindsay Brown also expressed interest in being involved. With the support of Jo Lim at VicWater, we had a committee!
Donald Hughan went on to become Chair of WaterAble and an integral part of its reach and success. Like me, he got totally WaterAble-pilled and gave so much of his time and energy to the cause. Donald is an absolute legend. You can find out more about him below. Without employees with disability in the water sector willing to help lead WaterAble, and advocate publicly for disability inclusion, I think WaterAble would have fizzled out. I also want to acknowledge Matt Iversen, who always brought wise words to the committee and ended up serving as Deputy Chair. It takes real courage to advocate for disability rights when you have a disability, and I will always be grateful to have worked with Matt and Donald on WaterAble.
Between 2020 and 2021, we treaded softly but deliberately, knowing that everyone was under a lot of pressure with the pandemic still raging. Our first event to celebrate the International Day of People with Disability in 2020 definitely had an impact. It was all about hearing from people with disability and leaders from the sector. We had matched people with disability with leaders – asked them to meet and then recorded their reflections about the experience and what they learnt. Huge thanks to Jill Sears, who edited all the videos into a cohesive package that we showed on the day. I met some truly wonderful people with disability through this process. It really felt like we were building a community of people with disability and supporting them to speak up and share their experiences and stories. And in turn, this helped to improve everyone’s understanding and awareness of disability in the sector.
Through 2021 and 2022 we ran peer mentoring programs, again matching leaders and people with disability in the water industry. We called it the Connections Program and set it up as mutual learning. Finding people with disability who wanted to be part of it was a bit tricky, though. But for some people important friendships were forged through this process.
A little less conversation, a little more action
In September 2022, WaterAble ran our first Day of Action Workshop. The idea was that now we were emerging from the pandemic, we really needed to challenge the water industry to do more around disability inclusion. We brought fifty people from across Victorian water corporations together to agree on three actions that the industry could get done by 3 December – the International Day of People with Disability. Thank you to Helga Svendsen for facilitating the workshop pro bono – yet another favour I called in! The workshop came up with three actions, and I drafted a toolkit to help the industry get them done. By December, 12 of the 18 Victorian water corporations had fully or partially completed the actions. We were building momentum. The actions were things like, developing a one-page fact sheet on reasonable adjustments, developing a script in your job ads to encourage people with disability to apply and supporting them through the process.
I really wasn’t sure if a workshop like this would deliver results, but it was hugely positive, with people inspired to do more around disability inclusion in their workplaces. After the workshop, I was exhausted but full of hope that WaterAble was actually making a tangible difference for people with disability in the industry. You can see the report I wrote on the workshop through the link below.
The thing about momentum
During 2022, I was contacted by Rebecca Costin at Sydney Water about setting up something like WaterAble in New South Wales. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the WaterAble story – or how WaterAble went national.