About The Purple Flame
Built to close a gap.
Not to fill a space.
The Purple Flame was built because participation should not depend on perfect health.
From the Founder
Living with lupus taught me something most people never have to think about.
The world is designed for people whose capacity is predictable. Mine wasn’t.
Some days I could do everything.
Some days I could barely get through the day.
Yet the expectations rarely changed.
Neither did the systems around me.
And everywhere I looked, I kept finding the same thing: Gaps.
A gap between diagnosis and daily life.
A gap between awareness and participation.
A gap between needing support and feeling safe enough to ask for it.
A gap between what people are capable of doing and what their environment allows them to do.
Why I Started This
For more than 15 years, I lived with lupus.
Not as a patient.
As an employee.
As a colleague.
As a manager.
As a wife.
As a friend.
As someone trying to build a life while carrying something most people could not see.
Diagnosed in 2009. Still here. Still building the support I wish existed when I needed it.
What I Learned
A diagnosis was never the hardest part.
The hardest part was navigating systems that were not designed to recognise invisible challenges.
Workplaces.
Healthcare.
Insurance.
Education.
Public spaces.
Communities.
What The Purple Flame Believes
People should not disappear because they need support.
People should not have to prove they are struggling before they are believed.
People should not be forced to choose between their health and their independence.
Participation should remain possible when life gets complicated.
What We Are Building
A future where asking for help feels safer than staying silent.
A future where stories become evidence.
A future where participation is not limited by what others can see.
A future where participation remains possible for everyone.
What We Do
Turning lived experience into meaningful change.
The Purple Flame Method
Workplace inclusion consulting, workshops, training sessions, and speaking engagements.
Helping organisations understand invisible health realities and build environments where participation is sustainable.
The Purple Flame Community
Community building and peer connection for people living with invisible illness in the UAE.
A space to feel less alone, more understood, and better equipped to navigate life with a condition most people cannot see.
Research and Publishing
Collecting evidence, publishing findings, and building the data that UAE workplaces and policymakers need.
Including The Silent Record, an anonymous research initiative collecting firsthand experiences from people in the UAE.
The Question That Started Everything
Not the person.
The environment.
The Purple Flame exists to help individuals, organisations, and communities create environments where people can continue to participate, contribute, and belong.
Because the question is not:
“What are this person’s limitations?”
The question is:
“What barriers are standing between this person and participation?”
Founder
Steffie Gonsalvez
Founder of The Purple Flame. Invisible illness advocate. Someone who has lived with lupus for more than fifteen years.
Her work combines lived experience, community-building, inclusion consulting, and advocacy to help close the gap between awareness and participation.
She believes some of the most important barriers people face are not medical. They are environmental.
“The most important work I can do is create space for people to speak for themselves.”