Mercy Corps worker helps disabled Iraqis create a better life

Tiana Tozer lay in intensive care, begging a nurse to unplug her from life support. A drunken driver had taken away her ability to walk and her Peace Corps dream, and she was in agonizing pain.

But a physical therapist entered her hospital room and tried to recruit the tall, lanky blonde for a wheelchair-basketball team.

A year later, the thwack-thwack-thwack of a bouncing basketball ball would be the sound of rebirth for Tozer.

That was 20 years ago.

Tozer, now 40, is hoping the same familiar sound could bring dignity, self-respect and empowerment to disabled people in Iraq.

Tozer, the winner of gold and bronze medals in wheelchair basketball in the Paralympics, is well-known throughout the Northwest as a coach and advocate for teaching wheelchair basketball to disabled students. But in Iraq, where she works for Portland-based Mercy Corps, she is revered for her work helping the disabled fight for recognition, whether it's pushing for a law to set up a ministry for the disabled or starting a youth wheelchair-basketball team.

Tozer has a difficult task ahead of her. She not only has to help disabled Iraqis create a new life, but she also has to dispel the notion that they are less than able-bodied individuals.

While there is no confirmed number of disabled people in Iraq, the number is generally considered between 3 million to 5 million people, said David Holdridge, the Mideast regional director for Mercy Corps.

The high number is caused by a number of factors, including casualties from the Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, atrocities by Saddam Hussein's regime, birth defects, poor health care and lack of any regulations or control on the use of dangerous chemicals, Holdridge said.

"The issue is not the lack of accessibility," Tozer said. "It's the attitude and the general lack of knowledge."

Tozer knows that firsthand.

Twenty years ago, Tozer, who grew up in Idaho and now calls Portland her home, was a student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She was in the back seat of a car that was broadsided by a drunken driver who ran a stop sign.

Tozer, who wasn't wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the car and struck by another vehicle.

She was in intensive care for more than a month. Before her ordeal was over, she would have more than two complete blood transfusions, lose her ability to walk and be in such agony from her medical procedures and despairing of life ahead that she begged a nurse to unplug her life-support equipment.

"Don't be silly," the nurse calmly told her. "Your life isn't over."

Rebuilding her life

Tozer's mother, Lyn Tozer, of Boise, Idaho, refused to let her daughter sink into self-pity, and that summer asked what her plans were.

"I don't want you just sitting around the house," she told her.

She encouraged her daughter to return to college, which she eventually did.

Tozer had been a high jumper and basketball player in high school. Knowing that Tozer's athletic talent didn't stop just because she couldn't use her legs, the physical therapist who first tried to recruit her to play wheelchair basketball told her about a friend who had survived polio. He played on a wheelchair-basketball team and it helped him rebuild his life, she said.

Eventually, Tozer also began to play for the same team — the University of Oregon's Lowriders — a men's team, which had one other female player. After completing degrees in romance languages and political science, she went on to the University of Illinois for a master's degree in international relations. It was there that she took wheelchair basketball to a new level.

With the encouragement of Mike Frogley, the university's head coach of the men's wheelchair-basketball team, Tozer joined the U.S. Paralympic Team. From 1991-96, she played on the U.S. Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team, winning silver and bronze medals at the Paralympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 and in Atlanta in 1996.

In 1999, Justin Fleming, who is disabled, met Tozer when she was an assistant coach at a wheelchair-basketball camp held at Auburn High School. Eventually, Tozer took over as coach of the annual camp.

"She was a very intense individual," Fleming, now 21, recalls. "She definitely stands out as a person who is incredibly special."

Frogley says Tozer "has a tremendous sense of justice. ... When she sees something she thinks is unjust, she has to act. Combine that with a sense of competition, and you have an advocate who won't let go."

In 2007, she was hired by Mercy Corps to work in Iraq as one of about 10 people stationed in the area. She is the program manager for women's literacy and people with disabilities.

The disabled in Iraq are not allowed to hold jobs or go to school because their condition is often regarded as a curse from God, especially if they are born with a disability.

"I'm angry and bitter about some things," Tozer said. "And I can now laugh about others. But in Iraq, having a disability means isolation, spending your life in one room. ... In Iraq, [having a disability] means you're not a whole person."

Life on the go

To be fully effective in working with the Iraqis, Tozer is ready to push ahead with disregard for her own safety.

"She'll go anywhere," Holdridge said. "I have to hold her back and tell her it's not safe."

Tozer has blond hair and blue eyes and "doesn't blend very well" with the Iraqis.

But her outreach transcends the usual sectarian boundaries of Sunnis and Shiites.

"The disability trumps the ethnic division and that makes me proud," she said.

Together, she tells disabled Iraqis, "we can make the world a better place."

"She's been an inspiration," Holdridge said. "She's driven on rights issues. She's articulate. She's strident and angry but has a totally disarming smile, too, which takes the edge off anything she says."

Tozer, who has been living in Kuwait, will soon be transferred to Northern Iraq, where she will continue to teach the disabled to advocate for themselves in getting jobs, education and, sometimes, sports, when she gets the chance to teach them wheelchair basketball.

Tozer has brought together 32 organizations focusing on people with disabilities to form one group, the Iraqi Association of Disability Organizations (IADO).

Through Tozer's involvement, IADO has been pushing for legislation that will set up a ministry to benefit the disabled.

"They are just kicking butt over there," Tozer said.

Some of those she has trained have created an educational brochure on people with disabilities, talked to the Iraqi Department of Education to advocate for education for disabled Iraqis and, in some cases, done things as simple as putting wheels on chairs to make mobility possible for more people.

If she can, Tozer wants to start a sports camp for disabled people where they could learn to play basketball. She sees it especially important for a group of Iraqis she informally calls YAPS, Young Angry Persons (With Disabilities), people who need empowerment and inclusion, she said.

Tozer tells all the disabled, "if you persevere and have tenacity, you can go anywhere.

"I remember being so devastated that everything in my life was wiped out," she said. "Basketball was my lifeline."

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com