Angelique and Gwendolen are young ambassadors at St Mary’s. 69772 Picture: JOE MASTROIANNI
By Vanessa Chircop
SEVERAL students from St Mary’s Primary School in Williamstown will this week be granted a rare insight into what it is like to live with a disability.
As part of Scope See Me September – the Scope Young Ambassadors Conference will see school children from across Victoria, including Angelique and Gwendolen, experience life as a person with a disability.
The children will learn through activities how someone with no hands or feet can sign, use scissors and feed himself or herself or how a person who can’t walk plays basketball.
The conference will have the kids painting portraits with their toes, manoeuvring wheelchairs, communicating when they can’t see or hear – challenging their perceptions of living with a disability.
The St Mary’s students along with hundreds of others will become ambassadors and will be asked to return to their schools to promote the importance of creating welcoming and inclusive communities for people living with a disability.
The conference, which is taking place tomorrow at Etihad Stadium, will host three hundred students from across Victoria.
Scope is a not-for-profit organisation providing disability services that positively impact the daily lives of thousands of Victorian children and adults.
The conference will feature inspirational people who have lived their dreams despite adversity including MasterChef 2011 Top 50’s John Hughes, who lives with cerebral palsy, Australian Paralympic Team wheelchair basketballer Dylan Alcott and scope disability educator born without arms or legs, Lyn Rowe.
Scope’s mission is to support people with a disability to achieve their potential in welcoming and inclusive communities.
For more information on Scope See Me September: www.scopeseemeseptember.org.au
