50 Million Voices

Happy International Stuttering Awareness Day! 🎉 Yesterday, we kicked off our week-long Practice Interview Event to great success. Nearly 100 Interviewees and interviewers from around the globe joined our Educational Briefings, one at 12.30pm and the other at 5.30pm, to learn about #stuttering, stuttering pride, interviewing successfully as a candidate who stutters and as an interviewer keen to attract stuttering talent. We also highlighted our session on 'Stuttering and Intersectionality' that we're hosting tomorrow. Led by Iain Wilkie, Sam Simpson and Elias Apreko, the sessions gave the participants the chance to interact with each other, and share their experiences of stuttering in their own countries ranging from Canada to New Zealand, Argentina to India, USA to Ghana, and China to the UK!  It all went down well, and gave everyone a good opportunity to get to know each other better. We're now looking forward to getting the interviews rolling and seeing the feedback! Below we've shared a great illustration that we commissioned from @juststutter {on Instagram}, that portrays what stuttering is, whom it affects, societal attitudes and it's impact. How are you celebrating #ISAD2024?

We’re thrilled to report on the impact of our recent 7th Global #PracticeInterview event! 🎉 This inclusive initiative brought together over 100 participants—a 60/40 mix of people who #stutter (PWS) and allies—from 22 countries across 6 continents. For the first time, we welcomed participants from Argentina, Australia, Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Nigeria, further expanding our global reach and impact 🌍 We couldn’t have achieved this without the support of our amazing partner employers, including Amazon, British Council, Cargill, EY, Körber Supply Chain, Mishcon de Reya LLP, Rolls-Royce, Sage, SLB, and TSB Bank. Your commitment to fostering stuttering-inclusive workplaces is inspiring! Here’s what participants had to say about the event: 🔹 92% found the experience ‘Very Valuable’ or ‘Valuable’ 🔹 100% of interviewees now feel more confident about their next interview as a person who stutters (PWS) 🔹 87% of interviewers feel more confident about their next interview with a PWS (the remaining 13% feel just as confident as before) 🔹 88% agree with the statement "Participating in the event has helped me take a step towards becoming a more inclusive listener" This event wasn’t just about practice; it was about creating connections, building confidence, and shaping more inclusive workplaces worldwide. A huge thank you to all the people who stutter, allies, and employers who made this event possible. Here’s to continuing this journey and making an even greater impact in the future! #StutteringAwareness #Inclusion #Equity [Alt text: two infographics showing the potential impact and benefits of not disclosing and disclosing your stutter]

In the short video & article below, our chair Iain Wilkie explains why creating a stuttering inclusive workplace #culture enables employers to benefit from the talent pool of 50 million adults who #stutter. That's a lot of talented people & beautiful voices - more than 5 times the population of London, 2 times New York & 10 million more than our world's largest city Tokyo! 🌏 #50MillionVoices Iain Wilkie Diversity Network

'Participating in this event wasn’t just about helping someone else—it became a learning experience for me, too. It reaffirmed the importance of patience, empathy, and true listening, qualities that make us not only better professionals but also more understanding colleagues and allies.' Valuable reflections and feedback from Kirsty Duncan re our recent 50 Million Voices Practice Interview event! Big thanks for being one of our Interviewers Kirsty!

"I want to send a message to everyone who stammers, to everyone who has ever doubted their voice: You are enough, just as you are. To those who listen, who hold space for us, and who believe in the power of our voices—thank you." Well said Jerry Okiki !

We’re excited that 50 Million Voices will be featured at the Diversity Network's Disability Inclusion & Accessibility Summit next week on 12 and 13 November! 🌐   In a 1-1 'fireside chat', our Founder and Chair Iain Wilkie will share the story behind #50MillionVoices and our purpose to help transform the world of work for people who #stutter. He’ll also be explaining the #workplacechallenges faced by people who stutter and answering the question, “How can we all create stutter-friendly workplaces?”   Even though the session is pre-recorded, Iain will be available live during the summit to engage with attendees and answer any questions.   👉 Secure your spot by registering here: https://lnkd.in/eZEvSnzC #diversitynetwork

We closed out our 7th #PracticeInterview Event with an energetic group feedback session yesterday. It was lovely to hear how everyone's interviews went! Here are a couple of examples of what was shared by participants: ⚪ An interviewee shared how she's found a new way to talk about her #stutter in interviews. In the Educational Briefing sessions last week, we'd highlighted the potential advantages and disadvantages of disclosing our stutter. From this, she decided to risk talking more openly about her stutter in her practice interviews and, while finding it challenging to do so, she ultimately found disclosure can be a helpful tool! ⚪ An interviewer who doesn't stutter empathetically raised the complexity of how her interviewee had a triple level of anxiety to deal with in their interview: a) their stutter, b) English not being their first language, and c) the typical anxiety of an interview felt by everyone! For the interviewer, this emphasised the importance of patience and really listening to a #stuttering voice, and how she found that helped to create a genuine connection between her and her interviewee.   Some direct quotes of feedback we received:   ➡ Thank you everyone for an amazing experience! This was definitely a safe space for us stammerers and as a person with a speech impediment, I definitely felt heard. Looking forward to taking part in other 50 Million Voices events 🙂 ➡ It’s been such a great experience being involved with 50 Million Voices! Lovely to meet my interviewees and my fellow interviewer on the panel interview. Thanks all ❤️ ➡ Thank you all for this opportunity. I admire your courage and appreciate the experience.   Thank you all for sharing this experience with us! Below, we've shared a graphic by @juststutter about the potential effects of disclosing your stutter. 💡 People who stutter, we'd love to hear your thoughts - do you find disclosure to be a helpful or unhelpful tool?

As part of our weeklong #PracticeInterview Event, we held a vibrant session on ‘Exploring the #intersectionality between #stuttering and other human characteristics’ and what this means for employees and employers. Our speakers were Dr Derek E. Daniels - Associate Professor at Wayne State University, USA, Dr Claire Tupling - Researcher of Education, UK, and Puneet Singh Singhal - Co-Founder of Billion Strong, India, and chaired by Iain Wilkie - Founder of 50 Million Voices. Woven throughout the insightful session were lived tapestries of the impact that differences such as gender, race, poverty, sexuality and health can have for people who stutter on top of our speaking challenges. Derek opened by explaining what intersectionality is and then spoke openly about his experiences being an African-American man, gay and a person who stutters. He also shared how, by belonging to intersectional groups such as Passing Twice, he's grown in his sense of identity and personal confidence! His talk was particularly poignant, especially with it being #BlackHistoryMonth in the USA and here in the UK. Claire touched on what it means to stutter whilst being a woman and having a long-term health condition. She also touched on her difficulty navigating the healthcare system with a stutter. For example, the struggle of doing things many fluent people may take for granted, such as booking a GP appointment and ordering your prescription at the pharmacy. Last, but certainly not least, Puneet shared the challenges he's faced being a person who stutters and having the invisible disabilities of dyspraxia and dyslexia, all while growing up in the harsh realities of poverty and domestic violence. He approached the talk with a 'big-picture' worldview, and his advocacy mindset shone through! A massive thank you goes out to all three of our panellists for courageously sharing their immeasurably different life experiences and answering several great questions! Reflecting on this session brings up some questions for us: What does the intersectionality of stuttering with different characteristics mean for employers? What can employees with a richly intersectional life experience add to the workplace? We'd love to hear your thoughts! #ISAD2024

Thank you Natasha Whitehurst - Global Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at global powerhouse Rolls-Royce - for your super-supportive post below. In 50 Million Voices we're truly enjoying the collaborative Rolls-Royce way of working and making a difference for stuttering and inclusive communication together! #ISAD2024 #OKToStutter