ROBERTA FRANCIS
DISABILITY ACTIVISM Roberta Francis’ prosthetic leg doesn’t hold her back. Rather, it’s been the inspiration for her to help other disabled people around the world.
Can coffee save the world? Dr Roberta Francis thinks it can – or at the very least, it can make a positive difference in the lives of people with disabilities. The New Zealand-born academic and entrepreneur must be a caffeine fiend, if her energy levels are anything to go by. At just 30 years old, Francis is already a doctor of philosophy. She has also earned awards for her work as a disability rights advocate, been a writer for a TV production company, and set up an international foundation to create social change. “It was my goal to get a PhD before I was 30,” she says. “I see it as my greatest achievement.”
With such a stream of success, it’s hard to imagine Robbie (as she likes to be called) as anything but animated and upbeat. But when you are born
“There was a point when I felt inclined to give up on a career in peacebuilding.”
with a rare condition that threatens to deprive you of your mobility, there are inevitably going to be down times.
Phocomelia is a congenital syndrome where the limbs are not fully formed. In Robbie’s case, she had under-developed legs – her left leg did not form below the knee, and the main bones in her right foot were also missing. “My parents were completely taken by surprise, but they played the hand they were dealt,” states Robbie. So did she – a feisty toddler with two older brothers to keep up with and a prosthesis she called “Lucy leg”.
At 12, on the advice of experts, her left leg was amputated through the knee so that a better prosthesis could be fitted. Robbie went from being able to run and rollerblade to a virtual standstill. Although she knew that it would take time to learn to walk again, puberty hit hard: “I went from a confident girl to a teenager who always wore long skirts and baggy pants.”
Her personal battles moved her into humanitarian pursuits – from working as a victim support volunteer for the NZ police as a teen to studying international conflict resolution at Tel Aviv University. This came with its own challenges. “It was eye-opening, living with violence,” she states. One day at her local bus stop, she narrowly missed being hit by an explosion that killed a fellow commuter.
As a foreigner, she was readily able to cross into the West Bank and Palestine. “I had friends who were in the Israeli Defence Forces, others who were freedom fighters. It was heartbreaking to observe the intolerance and hate of the two sides – there was a point when I felt inclined to give up on a career in peace-building.”
A year in Paris working as an au pair gave her the space to process all she’d seen. “I felt very unsettled and didn’t speak French, so I was pretty lonely for a while,” she says. It was during this period that she made the decision to focus on the positive.
What brought her back on track was a group called The Parents Circle
– a forum set up by families, both Palestinian and Israeli, who’d had someone close to them murdered in the conflict. “People come together to share their grief,” she says. “Both sides feel the same pain.”
The resilience of the human spirit proved an incredible motivator – and these days that prosthetic limb, once hidden in shame and fear, is decorated in a vibrant blue-and-yellow floral pattern. Robbie has her mojo back.
A recent turning point came when Robbie went ‘undercover’ as a disability rights monitor at a staterun psychiatric institute in Mexico. What she saw there she describes as “horrific”. The residents were scabbed and bruised, and many were naked. There were no blankets and no toilet paper. The smell of faeces cloyed the air. “When I walked out and back into freedom, I realised these physically and intellectually disabled people had not only lost their liberty, but also their dignity … I had to do something.”
The Lucy Foundation, established in 2014, is that ‘something’. Robbie and a group of like-minded friends realised that employment was the key. “When you can’t afford medicines or the basics of life, how can you even begin to focus on inclusivity?” she says.
They settled on coffee as the catalyst. After sending the idea to a few NGOs, they were invited to engage with a coffee-farming community in the Mexican town of Pluma Hidalgo. “We worked with three families,” she says, “and delivered workshops open to everyone – including disabled people – teaching them how to improve soil quality and grow organically.”
The foundation set up various collaborations to build a complete supply chain: the green coffee beans are bought for a fair price, shipped to NZ by John Burton Coffee, and roasted by Able Coffee Collaborative. “We don’t bring in enough yet – we sold out in 2018 – but we are taking things slowly so we set up a sustainable operation where we can ultimately remove ourselves from the process.”
A sell-out product is one measure of success, but the real joy for Robbie came when a Mexican woman told her that her brother – who has a learning disability and would stay at home all day – is now seen in a different light by his community after attending the workshops. “The mockery has stopped, he has far less anxiety, and when he goes to the shops, he has brief conversations with people who shake his hand,” the woman told her.
But Robbie isn’t content to rest. She now has a new focus – working on a project for the Donald Beasley Institute, investigating the impact of access to housing on disabled Kiwis.
Robbie and her brightly patterned leg are raring to go. “I am a proudly disabled woman and a coffee lover,” she smiles. She wants people to stop seeing her disability as a weakness. It is her passport to changing the world – one double-shot at a time.