Hi everyone! As some of you may already be aware, this Saturday 3rd of December is International Day of People With Disability (IDPWD). This is a day to acknowledge, honour and celebrate people with disability and the vital and invaluable contributions they make. In saying that, we also want to recognise, acknowledge and honour that for some living with disability, it may not feel like something to be celebrated as much, and that’s completely ok too. All perspectives and experiences are valid and important. With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some incredible achievements this year that have contributed to representation and increased visibility of disability in many forms;
- Our Australian of the Year for 2022 is recently retired Paralympian Dylan Alcott, who has also been a huge advocate for disability. More on Dylan and his work here.
- Australia’s Eurovision entrant & (spoilers!) Masked Singer Runner up is Sheldon Riley, who lives with Aspergers Syndrome (now known as autism spectrum) and wrote his Eurovision Song about his experiences with this.
- Netflix’s Heartbreak High Reboot features Autistic actress Chloe Hayden (who is also an ambassador for IDPWD this year- you can check out other ambassadors here) playing an Autistic character. Chloe also released a book this year, ‘Different Not Less’, which you can find more about here
- The Australian Big Brother winner this year (and the only person to win twice!) was Reggie, who is legally blind as a result of retinitis pigmentosa. You can find Reggie here.
& that’s just a few things happening in Australia!
This year’s IDPWD theme is Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world’. In line with this, I'd also like to highlight a newer podcast, ‘Remarkable Insights’, which explores the intersection between innovation and lived experience of disability along with what this could mean for the future of technology. this comes from the team behind ‘Listenable’, which is another podcast centring on the stories of people with disability.
If there are other instances of representation and increased visibility of disability you know of and would like to highlight, feel free to add it! We'd also love to hear about any achievements those disabled in our community would like to share, whether that be yours or a loved one's- all this in accordance with our anonymity guideline of course!
Just tagging a few members who may be interested in this @eth @Adge @Appleblossom @BPDSurvivor @still_bookish @Oaktree @Determined @Shaz51 @Anastasia
