Operation Kindness: Alycia Anderson’s message on disability advocacy

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Alycia and Marty Anderson are advocates for people with disabilities. They are on a mission to promote understanding and create opportunities, recently traveling from their home in California to Shreveport. Alycia was the keynote speaker for The ARC Caddo-Bossier

“In society we’re taught that needs to be fixed, look away, they don’t belong they cannot contribute,” said Alycia. “I’ve lived my life with people looking past me, through me, staring from afar and the problem with that is the assumptions and the unknowns we are placing on other people that we have no idea what their lived experience is.”

The two are very open about their experience. Alycia is an identical twin who was born with sacral agenesis, a malformation at the base of the spine. Marty became disabled after falling out of a car seat when he was 22 months old. Both loved sports and met playing wheelchair tennis at sports camp.

“Eleven or 12 years old and I roll into this sports camp and I see my wife and her twin and it was something. You know they say love at first sight. This was that,” Marty shared.

More than two decades later they married. Both left high-powered corporate jobs to become fulltime disability advocates, creating The Alycia Anderson Company. Alycia is a motivational speaker and has even appeared on the TEDx stage. She also coaches corporations on inclusion and has partnered with more than 200 brands.

“If we open up a world that works for everybody, it’s innovative,” Alycia explained. “We get the Siris and texting and close captioning and all these things that we all choose. It’s an opportunity to commune together when we’re removing barriers.”

The Andersons say the key is open communication and appreciation of people from all backgrounds.

“We need to start allowing for the discussion to not just be how can we help them but bring it around full circle and shine the light on how we’ve helped you,” Marty said.

“We need to get to a place in our society where we’re not afraid to discuss things that we’re unfamiliar with,” said Alycia. “Oftentimes, I find in the work I’m doing when we start to discuss it, magic happens.