Strong Voices

David Corner has spent 12 years representing people with intellectual disabilities internationally. He has spent 24 years promoting their rights in New Zealand.

But when the bathroom in the house he owns was renovated last year, he didn’t get to choose the paint, or the vinyl that went on the floor.

Just pull the curtains and your lounge becomes a stage. Tear an old white sheet into moonbeams. Then find a soft, fluffy jumper to be The Badger.

Now you are ready to hear, see, touch, taste and smell The Badger Story. This is new digital, multi-sensory theatre delivered online by the Glass Ceiling Arts Collective to people with profound and multiple learning disabilities.

Sarah Holten-Warren is under attack from the degenerative neurological condition Rett syndrome and is fighting back using her eyes and her art to communicate.

Sarah, 27, a Māori mixed-media artist, was one of five artists in the Studio One Toi Tū Creative Studio Residency last year.

Taonga Peita turned four years old in May. He’s probably the youngest social media influencer in New Zealand with 58,000 followers on Facebook.

But a spike a year ago sent him way above that. A video of Taonga singing and jiving to Alicia Keys’ This Girl is on Fire went viral just before lockdown with millions of views. Now every video posted and every milestone Taonga reaches are watched and celebrated by people across the globe.

Disabled tertiary students now have a voice on campuses around the country with the birth of the National Disabled Students’ Association (NDSA).

Spearheading the move is Victoria University of Wellington law student Alice Mander, who has drawn together a national executive of disabled student leaders from Otago Polytechnic, the University of Auckland, the University of Canterbury and the University of Otago.

There was a cruel divide in Ollie and Ted Morris’s family. To be born a boy was to be born with an intellectual disability.

The cause of the disability that affected each of their four sons and none of their five daughters remains a mystery after nearly 90 years.

Actor Lily Harper is riding the wave of success in her first leading role and planning to do it all again in a Wellington season of Up Down Girl at Circa Theatre.

Up Down Girl is about a young woman with Down syndrome getting ready to leave home for the first time and her mother’s hilarious perspective on bringing her up.

Hidden around Virginia Lake in Whanganui are specially decorated stones designed to intrigue and inform people about a rare genetic syndrome known as cri du chat – or cry of the cat.

They have been hidden by Rachel Dempsey, a local woman who wants to help people understand cri du chat, which affects her and around 20 others in New Zealand.

Hamish Gilbert completed a gruelling 100km cycle ride through Hawke’s Bay in gale-force winds as part of his mission to earn gold in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award.

The ‘Adventurous Journey’ section was a three-day hard slog and the third and final requirement for his gold award. Hamish had meticulously planned his route and every detail of the journey. “It was headwinds all the way,” he says. “By the time I arrived home I was very tired. I was very pleased with myself.”

Autism researcher Hannah Waddington is looking for 48 Wellington families to take part in a study to test the limits of a play-based therapy that is achieving great results for young children.

Hannah, a Victoria University of Wellington educational psychologist and senior lecturer, is looking for families with children between the ages of one and four-and-a-half years to be part of the New Zealand-first clinical study.