TRANSCRIPT
It’s a busy day at a small office in Sydney’s west.
But this is no ordinary business and these are no ordinary workers.
22-year-old Rita Nichola is among those answering phones at Tender Loving Care Disability Services, also known as TLC.
Rita migrated from Syria and uses a wheelchair.
"TLC is my second family because I feel better with them. I feel safe, I feel comfortable. They support me to feel like I'm proving myself."
Growing competence is crucial for Rita who was born with spina bifida, a type of neural tube defect that affects the spine.
Rita’s movement is limited and she was also diagnosed with moderate intellectual disability.
Rita is proud to volunteer in customer care at TLC, and to learn new skills in a supportive, caring environment
“I answer the phone, I talk to the people. I learn how work is. Because I make friends, because the TLC teach me how to contact with people, how to change my life, to make it better. “
TLC has also connected Rita with the National Disability Insurance Scheme or NDIS, which she says now funds a range of services including transport to the office, therapies, and personal care and a support worker.
“The support worker takes me out wherever I need. I'll say to them, if I need to go to my friend, if I need to go to the park, if I need to go to the beach. They help me to support myself at home and they teach me how to draw, how to write, how to learn English. Because I came here, I wasn't speaking English.”
Rita has come a long way since leaving her home in Syria’s Hama in 2018. As one of five children Rita struggled to get an education, due mainly she says to limited disability services or even wheelchair access ramps at school.
“I stopped to go school because there wasn't support and there wasn't a ramp for me to go. And like, I was nine years old when I left the school. I didn't do anything. I just stayed home with mum and dad. It was so hard. I don't know how to write and read Arabic. It's so hard for me to learn now. I was feeling so scared and I was feeling so sad because my life, it was not good over there. It upset me because my brother and sister, they go to school and I don't go to school. And because like, I see all of the kids going to school except me. Why? What's wrong? It's not my fault. What did I do wrong, like to not accept me, to not go to school.”
Starting over in Australia with limited English isn’t easy and Rita is not alone. For migrants with disability finding an accessible job is even harder.
TLC Australia’s CEO Laura Cowell explains.
“I'm actually quite angry and it's why we do what we do. The simple things - like opening doors and being able to go into rooms. And so when you take Rita's story, it's one of millions and it makes me quite angry and disappointed that we aren't doing more.”
Others like Rita hold paid jobs at its social enterprise café at TLC’s Bankstown offices, as Ms Cowell explains.
“The cafe is one of our initiatives. It's a milestone in one of the goals that we have, which is about having sustainable organisations to give employment opportunities for people with a disability. They've gone through a 12-week program, a skills program. They've got their barista training certificate and they love the cafe. It's a really great initiative. It's something we're so proud of here.”
It’s just one aspect of the broader TLC vision, started in 2017 by Yasser Zaki, a former sales manager with a degree in engineering.
“TLC is a disability services provider that is certified by the NDIS. In essence, we provide care for people from vulnerable backgrounds, disability specifically, and it's a broad range of disability. We are predominantly in healthcare, but outside of that we have travel, we have cleaning services, we have products, production, so basically food and beverage arm, technology arm.”
After migrating to Australia from Egypt in 2004, Mr Zaki made a move into disability services, after a chance meeting with a passenger on a train in 2011.
“I see an elderly lady crying and as you would do, you just ask, is everything all right? Are you okay? And then she just opened up talking and telling me her story and quite a sad story. So, as we continued conversing, she reached her destination and she had a little bit of shopping and I just offered, would you like me to carry your bags?”
Arriving at her home, Mr Zaki offered to help clean.
It was to become a weekly routine that led to a lasting friendship.
“I kept going every week, every Saturday for about four or five hours we did a little bit of shopping, little bit of food, and that was the highlight of my week actually. When she passed, I went to that moment of sadness but then awakening: I felt that she was helping me and giving me purpose, giving me a reason, giving me that sense of family. And I really, really started missing that a lot. And I started realising at the time that it wasn't just me going out helping but helping someone helps us at the end of the day. And that was a shift and that was the whole career shift. It's like if helping people feels that good, I should do more of it. And that's when I had that moment and ended up working in disability.”
As TLC’s global CEO, Mr Zaki now oversees 1,100 staff across a range of health and related services.
In recent years, he says, diversifying the business has enabled rapid growth.
“TLC is a nationally certified organisation so we can provide services across Australia. We started with the east coast of Australia, so Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. And part of our expansion plan is to go to Canberra, Adelaide next and then Perth.”
And there are big plans to open a school for people with autism in Australia, and also in his home country of Egypt, following the launch of a similar venture last year in Dubai.
“Dubai is an open market for all businesses from all over the world. So, it was easy to actually start the model in Dubai, blending a United States schooling experience with TLC disability experience and then launch there as a testing model.”
It’s a people-centred approach that’s earned several recent awards, with Mr Zaki named CEO of the Year in 2023 by the Australian Disability Service Conference and Awards.
“One of the biggest missions for me is impact. I want to make sure that we are creating a positive impact in the world and these awards are recognition and gives credibility to the work we do, which hopefully others will see and then follow the same footsteps. TLC is not about profit. It is about helping families to come out of tough situations whether refugees or others that are struggling.”
Syrian-born Rita Nichola is among those grateful for some tender loving care as she gains new skills. And she hopes one day to support others like herself
“I would like to work here as a paid job in the future. I would like to help other people, to reach their goal.”
