Katrina's Story
[Title on screen reads, ‘Katrina’s Story’]
[Our Site logo]
[Fair-haired Katrina sits in an armchair]
[KATRINA]
Hello, my name is Katrina. I’m 23 years old. I live in Annandale. As a child, my family has moved a lot. I have lived in lots of different places. I am passionate about giving a voice to people with disabilities. I enjoy drama and poetry. I wish to publish my poetry and my autobiography. I used to grow up in England and I’ve mainly grown up as well in Auckland, in New Zealand, Auckland. We found opportunity to come here through – since I have my university for uni 2 beyond which provides me to audit classes. That’s the main reason why I came to Sydney in the first place so that’s why I’m here. Attending the classes and being part of university life is life-changing, so, yeah.
I was the Vice-President of People First where people with disabilities gather round and support each other about our rights and how we can speak up for our rights when people with disabilities do struggle. The Ministry for Education allows me to take part in workshops and also speak in videos about how to – about how to best provide for support and skills.
I was also lucky enough to be in Youth Parliament to promote people with disabilities…having a positive role in society.
I strongly disagree about special skills and special homes. I want people with disabilities to be mainstreamed. I’ve been mainstreamed since when I was young and my parents put me through mainstream schools and they made sure that I can be part of the mainstream so they made me feel that I can be included in the community where I felt that I don’t need to be reminded of who I am with a disability.
Since my parents gave me the idea of the mainstream school I’m just really pleased that I can be able to make friends with people without disabilities and I think that – I do recommend for people with disabilities to get out there and talk to people without disabilities. I know I’ve heard my friends talk about that they can find it challenging to talk to people without disabilities because they find there are fears because of how they are. Before people with disabilities speak, people without disabilities judge them about what they can or what they can’t do and then once people with disabilities actually show people without disabilities about what they can do, it doesn’t matter if you struggle with speech or – it doesn’t matter if you struggle through speech or struggle with anything else because we all struggle with all of these things but we all do the best that we can, pretty much.
Um, I just want to make sure that people don’t judge in the background of what we can or can’t do. I mean, my father had a point before, that he said, “I have a disability because I have glasses,” or people have their own ways of, like, what, like, people without disabilities have different abilities as well. Like, people without disabilities, I’m sure they can or can’t do things as well so I’m just going to say, “Why would they want to judge people with disabilities if they have their own can or can’t do’s?”
I’m really amazed that I’ve lived a very interesting, engaging life and it has been quite a journey so I am really proud with what I’ve become so I hope that answers it. Yeah.
[Text on screen reads, ‘Watch more stories at Our Site oursite.wwda.org.au’]
[The logo for Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA)]
