International Day of People with Disability

On 3 December every year International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) is celebrated worldwide recognising the achievements and contributions of people with disability.

IDPwD brings together people with disability and the general community and aims to:

• showcase the skills, abilities, contributions and achievements of people with disability
• promote a positive image of people with disability
• involve people with disability and the broader community in activities to celebrate and raise awareness of  IDPwD.

Once again, TADNSW will be participating in Parramatta Council's Expo in the Mall on December 3rd. There will be stalls from a variety of disability services, entertainment, and information. If you're in the area, come by and say hello to us at the TADNSW stand. We'll be providing information about all of our services and take the opportunity to wave our flag in the local area. 

The IDPwD 2009 Expo in the Mall is a fantastic opportunity for disability service providers to raise awareness of their services to people with disabilities as well as to local businesses, organisations and Parramatta residents.

The Expo is a FREE event and starts at 10am and runs until 2pm. Hope to see you there! For more information, visit the website.

Thinking outside the square

In this modern age of all things "social networking", it is not surprising that these technologies are being adapted to suit people with various disabilities.

The biggest hurdle for most people with a disability is accessibility. Forward thinking companies like Apple have integrated a number of features into their iphones to make them accessible to someone who is blind or vision impaired. Things like special navigation and sound commands enable users who may not otherwise have embraced this sort of device to access them.

For example, today I stumbled across Qwitter Client. Qwitter Client is an accessible Twitter client designed for access by the blind, providing an innovative integration between Twitter and a user's screen reader.

According to their website: "The Qwitter client enables blind individuals to interface with the Twitter service globally, regardless of application focus. Based off of revolutionary concepts pioneered in The Jawter Jaws Scripts, Qwitter, with full support for the three major comercial screen readers and sapi speech, provides you instant access to all aspects of the twitter microblogging service, giving you the ability to post a tweet from anywhere, read tweets, perform searches, and far, far more."

Adaptations like Qwitter Client ultimately mean that more people are able to utilise these tools and be involved in popular new communication tools. Despite the many benefits of Qwitter Client and many other adapted software programs and applications, they rarely receive funding to support their development and thus rely on donations from the public. Hopefully, before long more companies will follow the lead and start thinking about the varying needs of their users who want to access their products.

Read more about Qwitter Client.

Mao's Last Dancer Charity Screening

On October 7th, despite Winter making a surprise appearance, over 120 people came along to see the film adaptation of Li Cunxin's memoir "Mao's Last Dancer" at Randwick's Ritz Cinema.

The film, which documents Li's lifestory: being picked as a child to represent China as one of Madame Mao's ballet dancers and achieving world-reknown as a talented dancer in the United States, and later his controversial defection from the People's Republic of China. This touching story didn't leave a dry eye in the cinema.

After the film, member of the cast and long time friend of TAD, Penne Hackforth-Jones shared her own experiences of the film and let the audience in on some of the movie's secrets.



The charity screening proved to be a popular fundraiser for TAD and attracted a varied crowd of new faces and longtime supporters.

Thanks must go to Penne Hackforth-Jones for being TAD's special guest on the night, and to the wonderful Randwick Ritz Cinema for hosting the event.

Carnivale ARTES

Studio ARTES Northside Inc is a not for profit community based organisation providing programs for people with disabilities in Art, Recreation, Training, Employment and Skills.

In October they are holding their annual Carnivale ARTES a two day exhibition and workshop program. At the opening night on Friday 16th October, they will open the Carnivale with various visual performance art. Artwork will also be available to buy from the gallery.

Based in Hornsby, these artists not only learn how to create and express themselves visually, but have the opportunity to show their works in a gallery and even sell to the public.

On the Saturday and Sunday (17th and 18th) they will be running a number of artistic workshops like oil painting, chinese brush painting, meditation, drum workshops, jewellery making, weaving, and yoga just to name a few! Each workshop is only $15 per person but bookings are essential. You can download the full program through their website.

This sounds like a fun way to spend a weekend and a great organisation to support. To find out more visit their website www.studioartes.com.au or phone 0438 772 592.

Deutsche Bank Lends a Hand

On Friday, sixteen employees from Deutsche Bank's IT department came along and spent the day refurbishing computers for TADNSW. Deutsche Bank offers their employees volunteering time with a organisation of their choice. This time a group of employees decided to pay a visit to TADNSW and see what they could do.

Since they all work with computers in their day-to-day roles, they asked if they could help in our Computer Support Service (CSS). CSS refurbishes donated computers and gives them a second lease of life. They are then sold as a low-cost computer package to people with a disability or those in receipt of a Centrelink benefit. The packages start from $200 and include an internet ready computer, LCD monitor and Windows XP. Add-ons can be bought to increase the power or hard disk space available on the computers.

TADNSW's Northmead office has a computer workshop that is staffed by volunteers each week. Most come in on a regular day and each have a particular job that helps prepare the computers for sale.

The volunteers from Deutsche Bank wanted to lend a hand so we set them up in our Board Room for the day. The volunteer who usually does this particular task normally completes about four machines a day and he comes in two days a week. The Deutsche Bank group wanted to finish as many machines as they could in the day and were able to complete 16 machines; equivalent to a fortnight's worth of work for our usual volunteer.

To add excitement they set up a leader board to inject a bit of healthy competition and spur them onto their goal.

One of the organisers, Ben Tyas said their prime motivation was being able to use their skills to help other people. "It's great to do something we know will actually help people and actually be of use. It was just fitting that we could do something with computers," Ben said.

Deutsche Bank have also generously donated some of their computer equipment and one of the volunteers has already signed up to volunteer on a more permanent basis.

"We really enjoy opening our doors to the public to show what we do here at TADNSW, and in this case give them the opportunity to make a difference too," TADNSW's Development Coordinator Melanie Gibbons said.

To find out about volunteering with TADNSW visit our website.

Mao's Last Dancer - Charity Screening

For the first time TADNSW is hosting a charity screening of Li Cunxin's bestselling memoir and now film, Mao's Last Dancer.

TADNSW has organised a special screening of the film at Randwick's Ritz Cinema, on Wednesday, 7th October, 2009.

The film is based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin. At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

To make the evening more special, we will be joined by special guest, Penne Hackforth-Jones, cast member and friend of TADNSW, who will be there for a Q&A session after the film. Guests will get to ask Penne about the making of the film while enjoying canapes.

Tickets are $35 adults and $29 seniors and can be booked through TADNSW's website. Book tickets.

Danny's Story

The Spastic Centre is currently looking for stories from children or adults with cerebral palsy, or from their loved ones. The other day we came across their campaign website, You Be The Difference, and noticed one of the stories already posted online.

It is the story of Danny Hingston, born in Hong Kong in 1933 to a Scottish father and a Filipino mother. His life story is littered with both tragedy and triumph. Danny, who has cerebral palsy, has lost those closest to him, discovered new family members, survived the war and eventually settled in Australia. Danny has spent most of his life involved with the Spastic Centre and his story is both uplifting and touching.

Watch Danny's story now.

If you know someone with cerebral palsy, who has a story to share, tell them to have a look at www.youbethedifference.com/nsw. Or perhaps a member of your family has cerebral palsy and you want to acknowledge how they inspire you. Otherwise, you should go have a look at some of the other entries out there, and hear their stories.

You can share your story in words, a photo or video and show how you are making a difference at school, work, home or in your community. Each state will select its most inspiring story, and one of these stories will feature in Woman’s Day magazine in October.