Disabled voices are often unheard and this is particularly true for disabled people from ethnic minorities. Zubee Kibria and Raya AlJadir started the podcast My Voice, focusing on giving disabled people from ethnic backgrounds a platform to share life’s challenges faced by many disabled people raised in Asian-parent families.

Our editor, Emma Purcell, had the pleasure of chatting with Zubee and Raya about the podcast – how it started, the kind of guests that have appeared on the show and the importance of giving disabled people from ethnic minorities a voice.

Meet the hosts of My Voice: Zubee and Raya

Zubee Kibria is a disabled entrepreneur with cerebral palsy. For 12 years, she volunteered with the online publication Disability Horizons, supporting the content team with research and marketing. She’s also had many roles within the events sector, which later led her to start her own business, Access My Events, a consultancy service that advises businesses and organisations on how to make their events accessible to deaf and disabled people.

Raya AlJadir is an English graduate and freelance journalist living with muscular dystrophy. Like Zubee, she volunteered as a writer for Disability Horizons for 11 years. Most recently, she enrolled in Ability Today’s Academy For Disabled Journalists, where she is completing her NCTJ foundation course in journalism. She also volunteers at a food bank, answering phone calls from people in need of the service.

How the My Voice podcast started

The idea of the podcast began when Zubee was researching voiceover work and she found it was very difficult to get into that industry so decided to start a podcast instead.

Zubee explained a bit more about how the podcast was started: “I came up with the idea and invited my friend, Raya to join me on the journey.

“When doing a bit of research. I hadn’t seen or heard of a podcast that focuses on disabled people within the Asian community. I wanted to see how it would run and see if there would be any interest.

“I had no experience of running a podcast so it took a bit of research to find out how to do it and finding the right software for it. We took it from there and launched it in September 2022.”

Raya added: “The initial idea came when we were still at Disability Horizons. We were both talking about how there aren’t many articles written about disabled people from ethnic minorities.

“It was also at the time when it was the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 and there were only about two or three from ethnic minorities in the list. We know that’s not the representation of disabled people because there are thousands of disabled people from ethnic minorities. Yet, they don’t seem to be written about or appear in the media.

“There was one day when Zubee and I were talking about this and she said, ‘I think I’m going to do a podcast about this’ and I was really excited because it’s very rare to read about disabled people from ethnic minorities like Zubee and I. If you look back Disability Horizons team, I think it was just Zubee and I who were from ethnic minorities. So that was one of the foundations for the podcast.”

Featuring disabled people from ethnic backgrounds and the wider disability community

Since the launch of the podcast, Zubee and Raya have released twelve episodes, speaking to a variety of people with disabilities from both the ethnic minority community and other areas of society.

Raya told us more about the guests featured on their podcast and why they expanded beyond ethnic minorities: “We’ve had various guests. Initially, we did start with sort of being strict about having people from ethnic minorities. But we wanted to expand and tap into areas that, yes, it’s not from an ethnic minority point of view, but it’s an area that hasn’t really been looked at. For instance, how the Paralympics is quite, I wouldn’t say disableist, but quite limiting for disabled people. Everyone gets very excited about the Paralympics, but it’s actually quite discriminatory against some disabled people who want to participate and can’t.

“We had one guest, Emma Everitt, who was doing a documentary on how the Paralympics are not very inclusive in contrary to the media’s portrayal of the Paralympics.

“We also had Anoushe Husain, an ex Para climber, who was my favourite. She was very interesting, she was very open, very animated – I really liked her. She talked about how she went to live in China and Belgium and it was very interesting to get a different perspective on disability in different countries.”

Other guests featured on the My Voice podcast have included blind footballer and entrepreneur Azeem Amir, mentor and life coach Shabnam Rakhiba, disability advocate Isaac Harvey and Para Archer Danielle Brown.

Zubee also mentioned some of the themes that they speak about with their guests on the podcast: “We cover a range of different topics like marriage and disability, education, work and career – so it’s quite varied.”

Raya added: “We also had Anjum Khan talk about Ramadan and fasting and the stigma around what happens if you don’t fast or are unable to fast due to a health condition.”

In the early stages of their podcast journey, Zubee and Raya hosted a couple of episodes by themselves, chatting with each other about their own experiences of being from an ethnic minority living with a disability. They also did one episode where Zubee discussed her experience of being the first disabled person to take part in an Asian fashion show.

The joys of being disabled podcasters

Zubee and Raya went on to highlight what they love most about being disabled podcasters. Zubee said: “I just like to hear people because every person that we interview is different. So I just like hearing their stories and what they’ve been through to get to where they are now. It’s just really great to hear, and sometimes it can be very motivating for us as individuals as well.”

Raya said: “Similar to Zubee, I think I like meeting with other people and connecting with different areas that I would never usually be interested in. I’m really not interested in the Paralympics or wheelchair sports, but I’ve learnt more about it.”

Raya continued: “I guess also, for me, I like that we don’t have to answer to anyone. So when we were at Disability Horizons, we had to follow the guidelines and have stuff edited out or be told this was inappropriate. Whereas, with the podcast, we can do what we want, how we want it and there are no strict guidelines. It’s just being in control. I think that’s the thing I like is being in control of all our content.”

Zubee also shared another success story they’ve had: “We’ve managed to get some funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to help develop and progress the podcast further, which has really helped. So that’s been really positive news and something that we didn’t actually expect.”

How to listen to the My Voice podcast

The My Voice podcast is currently exclusively on Spotify but they are hoping to expand to other podcast platforms soon. The episode schedule can vary but it is usually monthly or bi-monthly that new episodes will appear.

If you would like to be a guest on the My Voice podcast, you can email hello@myvoicepodcast.co.uk.

You can listen to all previous episodes on Spotify and follow the My Voice podcast on Facebook and Instagram.

Advertise With Crip Life™

The Crip Life™ advertising strategy is “Pay What You Can (PWYC).” We know this is very different to most if not all, online magazines. PWYC is a business model that doesn’t insist upon set prices for its goods or services. Instead, it asks clients to pay what they feel the product or service is worth and what you can afford to pay.

We want to place adverts for a wide range of clients. So, whatever the size of the organisation, if you want to promote a product or service, contact Joanna Baker-Rogers.

For more information on our advertising strategy, read our Crip Life™ Media Pack 2025. (If you prefer, we also have a Plain Text version).

Also, view our Crip Life™ Advertising Offers 2025. (We also have a Plain Text version)

Subscribe To Our FREE Newsletter