Hi everyone. Today we’ll again discuss something that directly affects a significant percentage of the estimated 1.2 BILLION people around the world who have disabilities. If you are not one of these individuals, odds are they are one of your family members or friends.

I’m speaking about those who have “invisible” disabilities. In other words, they don’t use an assistive device, like a cane or wheelchair. This means that most of us have no idea of the challenges these people deal with day after day, not even some of their own family members.

In Part of 1 of this two-part series, we learned about those with invisible disabilities, the challenges they face, the improvements that are being made on their behalf, and about an organization that is working tirelessly to advocate for them.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll cover how things have evolved over the past couple of decades for those with invisible disabilities, COVID’s impact, what the future might look like, what opportunities this may present, and more.

To help us with all this, we’re again going to speak with an expert on this topic. He’s Wayne Connell.

Wayne Connell is president and CEO of the Invisible Disabilities® Association. Wayne founded IDA in 1996 out of the desire to educate friends and family about his wife, Sherri's debilitating illness. Soon afterwards, people around the globe began sending emails sharing how IDA had changed their relationships with their loved ones. Wayne’s background fueled his passion for helping people living with illness, pain and disability. His mission and efforts helped quickly launch IDA into a world-wide outreach for millions living daily with invisible disabilities. These days, Wayne spends most of his evenings, weekends, vacations and holidays, volunteering for IDA.

During daytime hours, Wayne is focused on managing the Telecom Infrastructure Team for Dish Network and Sling TV. He is also Founder and President of the DISH Disability Advocates Network, a DISH employee resource group. He loves sharing and blogging about the great work of IDA and advocating on behalf of all people living daily with illness, pain and disability. Wayne has been given the opportunity to speak at many organizations and businesses over the years about invisible disabilities as well as share via local and national TV and radio.

Wayne is also co-author of the book, "But You LOOK Good: How to Encourage and Understand People Living with Illness and Pain."

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