Disability advocate Olive Webb has Timaru audience enthralled
By: Rachael Comer
Timaru Herald: 7pm, May 27, 2024
Dr Olive Webb, left, chats with Erin McNaught at the Aoraki Foundation's Women's Fund luncheon in Timaru on Friday. Webb was a guest speaker at the event.
JOHN BISSET / THE TIMARU HERALD
A voice for people who may not otherwise have one, Dr Olive Webb was a compelling speaker at an event in Timaru last week.
The clinical psychologist, 77, who was nominated in the local hero category of the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year Awards earlier this year, was the guest of honour at an Aoraki Foundation Women’s Fund event on Friday.
There was barely a whisper from the audience at the West End Hall as Webb spoke about her own life, people with disabilities and the need to treat others well and with respect.
But before she took to the stage, there was also an update from those in South Canterbury making a difference.
Speaking on behalf of Presbyterian Support South Canterbury Family Works, general manager Deidre Dahlberg and counsellor Julie Smart told the crowd of more than 70 women that money given to the organisation through the fund had allowed it to run two eight-week women’s counselling courses.
Another was being organised, she said.
“Poverty is a real issue for lots of the clients, and it was important to be able to run these workshops,” Smart said.
“The courses enabled women to get together in a safe environment and be supported.”
Members of the 70-strong audience at the Women’s Fund event.
JOHN BISSET / THE TIMARU HERALD
Women’s Fund committee member Jan Hide said the courses were a great example of what the organisation could do for the community.
She said it was the aim of the fund to raise $50,000.
“So far we are lucky enough to have raised just over $30,000.”
The fund was launched in 2019, but then Covid-19 struck. It was relaunched in March last year.
Webb told the audience that when she agreed to speak at the event, she had not realised it would be a reunion of sorts, explaining that she had seen and spoken to many in the hall whom she had met through her 50 years of working with people with disabilities.
“Whenever you think about disability, you come back to power,” she said.
“I remember once going to Ian Evans [professor emeritus of psychology, Massey University], and he said: Imagine the difference if you go to the door to see somebody who lives in a home for people with disabilities and ask for ‘Bill’. And instead of someone saying, ‘He’s in his room,’ they say, ‘I’ll see if he’s free.’
“When you walk into those places [a home for people with disabilites], power and how it is used become an issue.”
At the luncheon are, from left, Deidre Dahlberg, Lynda Hunter, Anne Fenwick and Andrea Clegg.
JOHN BISSET / THE TIMARU HERALD
Webb began working at Christchurch’s Sunnyside Hospital in 1970 as an assistant clinical psychologist. At the time it had about 1300 patients.
She was there for 24 years and specialised in working with people who have intellectual disabilities, and people who have autism.
In 2022, Webb gave evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, and last year she wrote a book titled From Behind Closed Doors: My Journey Alongside People with Intellectual Disabilities.
Webb was the longest-serving board member on the Canterbury District Health Board, and in 2008 she was made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to people with intellectual disabilities.
It was important that people with disabilities were treated as individuals, she told those at the luncheon.
“If someone refers to individuals as ‘them’, take them off your Christmas card list.”
- The Timaru Herald