Today’s story is a little different to some of our previous episodes.

We generally meet guests post-life quake, who have the benefit of hindsight, and we learn how "That Big Thing" has changed the direction of their life - but we meet them on stable ground.

Not everyone is on the other side of an event that has changed the way they see how they fit into the world… sometimes we meet someone that is mid-quake.

Chaeli has cerebral palsy and is a full-time wheelchair user. A big part of her journey is being able to say "I am disabled and" not "I am disabled but."

While Chaeli is not always okay with being a disabled person, she lives openly, sharing her perspectives along the way.

Chaeli Mycroft started the Chaeli Campaign at the age of nine to raise funds for her own motorised wheelchair. Chaeli won an International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 and she was awarded the Social Activism medal by the Nobel Peace Laurates in 2012. Today, the Chaeli Campaign is a social justice organisation that serves more than 7000 beneficiaries every year.

Chaeli is disabled, and she completed a masters in human rights law. She's been to the top of Kilimanjaro. Chaeli has completed the comrades, published a book and is an adaptive athlete. Chaeli is also the only person I know that has seen the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, live, twice.

QUOTES:

"It took us a long time to reach a point where I could say, like, just say the sentence, I'm not always okay with being a disabled person. Right? Because you put out this persona of like, I'm the positive, solution-finding disabled person who's trying to not be an issue to somebody."

"My whole life I have very supportive people. I have a phenomenal support network. I do everything that I need to, I want to do. Never in my entire life had anyone said to me that supporting my 18,000 needs in a day is a privilege to them."

WEBSITE: https://chaeli.co.za/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/chaelimycroft

RECORDED AT LATITUDE PODCAST STUDIO:

https://www.staylatitude.co.za/latitude-podcast-studio/ Listen to Something Shifted: The Soundtrack on Spotify