advocacy
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Jasper on diHARD Radio: Lived Experience, Access, and Community
Last year, Jasper was interviewed on diHARD: Diversity and Inclusion – The Hard Topics, a show on community radio station JOY 94.9. Jasper shared his lived experience as a deafblind queer trans man and raising awareness about what deafblindness really means in everyday life. In the interview, Jasper spoke honestly about common misconceptions. “Being treated…
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DBV Café Celebrates Heather Lawson’s Lifetime Achievement Award
On National Self Advocacy Day, 8th October last year, SARU (Self Advocacy Resource Unit) presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to our very own Heather Lawson. At our recent DBV Café, we were honoured to present the award to Heather in person, surrounded by friends and supporters. Alex Sar handed her the clear, circular glass Lifetime…
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Getting around Melbourne: the new Metro Tunnel!
The Deafblind community has been anxious to know: what will the new Metro Tunnel mean for us when it opens? We want Melbourne to be safe and accessible. At DBV Café on 24 September, we talked with Em Coy from EnAccess Maps and Alan Nargessi and Tim Fullerton from Metro Tunnel to find out more…
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Victoria’s first raising of the Disability Pride Flag
Hello! This is Jasper Cleland. We are at the end of July, which was Disability Pride Month. On Tuesday July 8th, I went to St Albans Community Centre for the first raising of a disability pride flag to ever happen in Victoria! The event was organised by our neighbours here in Ross House, DRC (Disability…
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Generation Women – Heather Lawson’s Presentation
Generation Women Australia is a series of storytelling events that aims to unite and empower women. On 25 September 2024, six Deaf women of different generations told personal stories to a live audience in Melbourne. DBV member Heather Lawson was one of the presenters. She gave an inspiring story about her life as a deafblind…
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Connect to Act: DBV joins community groups to yarn bomb politicians
As part of Deafblind Awareness Week celebrations held across the month of June, Deafblind Victoria joined a group of leading service, research and community organisations on the steps of Parliament House on Spring Street. They braved the cold Melbourne morning to raise awareness among Victorian politicians and across the wider public about deafblindness, what this…
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Deafblind people at DBI 2023 conference in Ottawa, Canada
Three Deafblind Victoria members attended the Deafblind International conference in Ottawa Canada in July 2023. We met many wonderful deafblind people at the conference from Europe, North America, India and Australia. Some of these deafblind people did short video interviews with us to share with you. Click here for a YouTube playlist of all the…
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DBV meets with the NDIS Review
The NDIS is currently being reviewed. The review looks at how the NDIS is working, and makes recommendations for changes. DBV believes that the NDIS should fund self-advocacy groups like DBV; these groups are very important for people with disability. On Thursday 13th of July, Trudy Ryall represented DBV at a meeting with the NDIS…
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Meeting the NDIA boss
On 4th May 2023, representatives from self-advocacy groups met with Rebecca Falkingham, the CEO of the NDIA. The NDIA is the government agency that runs the NDIS. The meeting was organised by the Victorian Self-Advocacy Network (VSAN). The representative from DBV was Trudy Ryall. Trudy said “I represented on behalf of Deafblind Victoria and presented…
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Housing for Deafblind Victorians
What does an accessible home for Deafblind people look like? Do we rent, live in supported accommodation, share, or live alone? What barriers do we face to finding a safe place to live? On 22.2.23, 10 staff from the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) Market Housing team attended an online workshop by Deafblind Victoria…
