Toyosi Badejo-Okusanya was labelled stubborn as a child. Adults punished her for ignoring instructions, assuming she was being disrespectful, when in fact she could not hear. Growing up in Nigeria, Badejo-Okusanya quickly realised that disabilities were often framed through prayer, silence or pity. Disabilities existed, but it was treated as something to be managed privately rather than accommodated publicly. In 2017, she moved to the United Kingdom, where she encountered a different system: the National Health Service (NHS) provided hearing aids as standard care, and universities treated accessibility as a necessity rather than an inconvenience. “Nigeria showed me how culture and stigma can shrink a person’s sense of possibility,” she said. “The UK showed me what happens when systems c...