Some of Our Parts

Hi everyone!

It’s O-Week, I hope you’re all enjoying your one last week of holidays before classes start again on Monday!

• If you haven’t already heard, Raise the Platform is a new disability advocacy radio show starting on SYN 90.7FM this Saturday at 11am – tune in and you might hear some familiar voices!
• An amazing story from the Guardian about a man who taught himself to see.
• Reasonable adjustments and Ramadan
• Meet Pint Size Boogie – Australia’s first Guide Horse!

It’s a pretty slow news week over here, but let us know if you see or hear of any great disability news!

Also – check out these Food Flags made by advertising company WHYBINTBWA for the Sydney International Food Festival!

Happy Friday every body!

How are your holidays?

• The Gothenburg Cooperative for Independent Living in Sweden is brewing beer for disability awareness! Cheers!
• While these wonderful songbirds are writing A Song, A City to raise funds and awareness around Spina Bifida.
• Fashion Freaks have a range of wheelchair friendly fashion with patterns that you can sew yourself.
• Wheelchair to waves – nothing is impossible.
• The Australian première of HELLO, a long distance dance project for people with disabilities is on next week at 1000 £ Bend in the city!

It’s been pretty quiet around here.

If you hear/see/know of any great items to share on the Friday round up, let us know!

Unite by Lim Heng Swee

It’s that time of the week!

Hope you’re all enjoying your holidays, wherever you are!

Here’s some disability related tidbits from the grapevine from this week:

• Christina Stephens, the Amputee OT takes on a challenge and puts together her Legoleg!
• Check out this gadget that could help you see with your ears!
• Help get Audio Description up on the ABC permanently! Check out the Blind Citizens Australia website to lodge your own complaint.
• Ableism, much?
• Critical gender theory and art nerds! It’s Sunaura Taylor AND Judith Butler taking a walk together!
• Calling all artists! The Institute on Disability is looking for some creative types for it’s 2014 calender!
• Unfit to plead? An interesting article from Bernadette McSherry, theFoundation Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne.
• A Brief History of Down Syndrome
• Why deaf people sneeze silently?

VACATIONS II - Design by Maria del Pilar Botero

I hope you’re all doing marvellous things on your holiday!

Distinguished Monash Alumni, Ron McCallum AO is the Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Chair of Radio for the Print Handicapped of New South Wales Co-operative. He is also one of two Deputy Chairs of Vision Australia and in 2008 was appointed as a member of the Federal Government’s National People with Disabilities and Carers Council.

In 2003, he was awarded a Centenary Medal for his role as a labour law scholar and for his role as a disabled citizen in our nation. In 2006 the Queen’s Birthday honours recognised Professor McCallum with an Officer in the Order of Australia for his services to tertiary education, for industrial relations advice to governments, for assistance to visually impaired persons and for social justice. In 2007 Professor McCallum received an Alumni Achievement Award from Queen’s University Canada where he had undertaken postgraduate studies in law from 1972 to 1974.

In 2008, McCallum was elected to the first Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the United Nations which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In February 2009, he was appointed inaugural Rapporteur to the Convention and in October was elected Chair of the Committee. He was re-elected to the Committee in 2010 and remains as Chair.

Watch his inspiring TedX Talk, ‘My Insight Into The Blind Reading Revolution‘, or read his Alumni profile here.

Good morning!

Hope you’re all enjoying your well deserved holidays!

Here’s a little round up of what’s going on in the disability world.

• The Australian Information Industry Association is holding their annual Accessibility Week to promote accessibility in web technology. Register here for the Melbourne program, just for one day, or the whole week (22-26 July)!
• This weekend at the Footscray Community Arts Centre, check out NIS – an interabilities sound/art performance by The Amplified Elephants and the BOLT Ensemble, run as part of the Click Clack Project.
• If you haven’t already noticed, King Kong has hit the Regent Theatre in Melbourne! There is an Auslan interpreted showing on the 3 August at 2pm, and an audio described performance will be at 2pm on 10 August.
• LAST MINUTE: Auslan at Circus Oz – tomorrow at 1.30pm (matinee) or 7.30pm!
• The wonderful Stella Young on DisabilityCare.
• Nathan Letts, a teenager who has been blind for the past four years shares his story while on work experience at a radio station.
• A little disability automotive history…
• Check out ‘Talk’, an award winning short film that portrays t a society in which non-disabled people are a pitied minority and disabled people lead full and active lives. Don’t forget Part 2 as well!

Cloud Cocoa. Photo by Nikole Herriott.

Keep warm, it’s getting chilly out there!

Enabling Women is a 4-day Leadership Program for women with disabilities. It will be offered in the Gippsland area in August/September this year.

The program aims to deepen women’s understanding of issues affecting women with disabilities, to empower women to lead and advocate in their own community, and to empower women to advocate as members of Women with Disabilities Victoria.

Information sessions on the program will be held:

Date: Monday July 15th
Time: 2.00pm – 3.00pm
Location: Bairnsdale

Date: Tuesday July 16th
Time: 11.00am – 12.00 midday
Location: Traralgon

Date: Tuesday July 16th
Time: 3.00pm – 4.00pm
Location: South Gippsland

The Enabling Women Program is made up of eight two hour modules.

Two modules will be combined to offer 4 one day sessions spread over a month.

Modules include:

• Getting to know you
• Social model of disability
• Self-Identity
• Human rights
• Communication (Speaking Up and Speaking Out)
• Advocacy
• Leadership Evolution.

As part of the Enabling Women program, it is hoped that participants will gain a greater understanding of the social models of disability and gender, as well as a broader appreciation of a more accessible society, with  rights based the definition of disability changes. Further, participants are hoped to learn to appreciate how self-image and self-identity is shaped by society and recognize that we can build positively on our self-image.

For further information or to RSVP contact Jane.Oldfield@wdv.org.au or Phone: 9286-7802

Or visit the Women with Disabilities Victoria website.

Following the beginning of the government’s NDIS/DisabilityCare scheme yesterday, the news has been fluttering with opinion and ideas about how it will effect individuals around Australia. Here are some interesting articles that might be worth a read.

• Guardian Australia readers respond – read their stories here.
• Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Disability Reform writes here.
• ABC’s Life Matters radio program wants to know what you think.
• Annabel Crabb writes for Ramp Up about the NDIS.
• The Myer saga continues…
• How should it be funded?