Every third of December I make it my mission to highlight people with disabilities who are winning the game of life as well as highlighting some areas that need further improvement if we are to all be included in today’s society.
2021 was easier than most years to find people with disabilities that are winning at life. Our Australian Paralympic team smashed it at the Tokyo Olympics bringing home more gold for Australia than their able bodied counterparts yet it was only after a protest that the Paralympic athletes that won medals were offered the same compensation.
I was particularly proud of and inspired by, not in the patronising sense: Riley Batt, the captain of the wheelchair rugby team; the amazing Shae Graham, the first Australian woman to make the rugby team; Paige Greco, who dominated the cycling track; and like every Australian team ever, the Paralympics swim team ruled the pool. Let us not forget my favourite para athletes Madison de Rozario and of course Dylan Alcott who will get his own paragraph later.
A new person who I have been watching closely this year, thanks to the podcast Cerebral Conversations, is Hannah Diviney, a highly talented writer and thought provoking advocate. Other writers on that List would be Samantha Bagnato, author of Repressed Feelings of Self-Portrayal, and I must also include Thomas Banks, author and playwright and star of the Stan documentary Quest for Love.
An area of disability that is becoming more well known is people with neurodiverse disabilities such as autism becoming more recognised, I wish to highlight the spectrum of amazingly talented people who fit in this category. People like Elon Musk and Greta Thunberg and I know my own nephew Jakeb who is also on the spectrum will one day do great things.
Every International Day of People with a Disability I try to highlight different people but every year without fail Dylan Alcott does something out of this world that makes me want to be more and more like him. This year he became the first Australian male tennis player ever to win a golden grand slam. Which means he won an Olympic gold medal and all four grand slam titles and just as a little cherry on top, he won the Victorian Australian of the Year and deserves to win Australian of the Year 2022. It is very humbling to me to realise I am only at Mt Everest base camp while Dylan is at the summit and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Now that he has retired and announced his intention to go into acting, I hope I get to fulfil one of my dreams and get to work with him.
As for my contribution for this year I have been able to achieve some small s success; I had the honour of emceeing the launch of the Disability Workers Registration, an initiative that will improve the quality of support workers for Victorians. Along with my ongoing work as a disability educator and public speaker, I have also entered the area of health advocacy after a personal experience with discrimination in the Victorian hospital system. As for my first love professional acting, I was asked to participate in my first worldwide casting call. As well as being shortlisted for a few local projects.
Poetically it has probably been the strongest year of my writing life by penning 26 poems and counting. I have also entered the world of instapoetry and spoken word poetry.
Hopefully at the end of this blog you now see that there are many reasons to be more inclusive because the people I’ve highlighted would be outstanding achievers even if you take away their disabilities and to my fellow Australians we should be proud we are gold standard disability.
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