Dan: The next category is sponsored by ACC, they’ve been right behind the Attitude Awards
from the beginning.
Tanya: For people with disabilities the main barrier to find employment is people’s attitude.
Dan: We want to celebrate employers who look past-perceived limits and simple hire the
best person for the job.
Tanya: The finalists in the Attitude ACC Employer of the Year Award are; Bunnings Warehouse
Shirley, the Halberg Trust and Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs.
V/O: Bunnings Warehouse in Shirley Christchurch has been eager to provide jobs for people
with disabilities, this is Seaton he lives with an intellectual disability.
Seaton: Welcome to Bunnings.
V/O: This is Mark he’s deaf and this is Anthony, he lives with an intellectual disability
to.
Mark: Hello how’s it going.
Nick: We have six people who work at Bunnings that have disabilities of varying ranges,
some are intellectual, we have a couple who are hearing impaired, but really its not a
barrier at all. They come along as some of the most enthusiastic really keen workers,
they’ve been here, a lot of them, some of them since the very beginning, we’re two
and a half years old now so and they give it everything. An example is Seaton he’s
here so early before his shift starts its not funny you tell him you don’t need to
be here this early. I would say any business that says it’s too hard to employ someone
with a disability probably hasn’t tried it. And you can’t knock it until you give
it a go and as I say we’ve been open for two and a half year now and we’ve had people
with disabilities from the very beginning from the moment we opened and its been fantastic.
V/O: Phil Melrose is a classic kiwi do it yourself type guy, when he broke his back
in 1991 he looked at the wheelchairs available and reckoned he could design something better,
you know what, he did. Almost 20 years on he has a respected international business
manufacturing mobility products and high performance wheelchairs. Seven of his twenty-five staff
are wheelchair users themselves, Phil sees no reason why it should be any other way.
Phil: I’ve never thought there was any real limiting factors with employing people with
disability and if they can do the job, well, there shouldn’t be any problems.
V/O: The Halberg Trust was born from a belief that everyone should have the opportunity
to be involved in sport.
Stacey: When I was a kid there wasn’t anything like this out there and I really missed out
on a lot of opportunity.
V/O: Today its employment process embraces the concept nothing about us without us. Stacey
Roche and Ian McDonald have been employed for their expertise it just so happens they
live with disability. All team members are actively encouraged to aim for senior roles.
Ian: Essentially what the Halberg Trust is doing is walking the talk as well as walking
the walk. Stacey works in the field as a Sports Opportunity Officer, her role is to teach
schools how they can include kids with disability in their sports programme. If special equipment
is needed she’ll source it often with funding from the Halberg Trust.
Steve: They bring real skills and they have really different experience and they have
quite strong skills that stand in their own right that are part of why they have those
positions.
Stacey: They really get it, they get inclusion and they get we are trying to do out there
in the community.
Tanya: Last year I organised and was part of a dance group that performed at the opening
of the Attitude Awards, this year it’s the boy’s turn. They’ll open the night with
a haka; a week out and they still have a bit of work to do on the moves. I’m sure it
will be alright on the night. And the finalists for Sport’s Performer of the Year are; Adam
Hall, Michael Johnson and Carl Murphy.
V/O: Skiing gold medalist Adam Hall went to the Winter Para-Olympics with a focus so clear
no one doubted he could win the gold medal.
Adam: I kind of tell people that Vancouver’s like my girlfriend in a way because I sleep
about it; I dream about it, my everything is about it.
V/O: Adam was born with Spina Bifida, he has no sensation in his feet, yet somehow he manages
to fly down the ski slope almost 120 kilometres per hour. His bid for gold was the result
of more than 14 years of ski training.
Adam: I got that ski bug back when I was 6 years old and I’ve stuck with it all the
way through and my peers come and ski with me, they’re the one with the disability,
they can’t ski. We’ve done some tests last year with pressure in my boot and you
know during the most important part of the turn I’m pushing about 250-300 kgs of force
and that’s a lot of force especially for my sticks that don’t even work properly.
And those events we’re going anywhere from 80 km’s up to about 120 km’s an hour.
You know and that’s faster than what your car’s legally allowed to go on the road,
even when you’re going half way through a turn with that pressure, I mean that pressure
when you release 250-300 kgs of force it can throw you anyway it can throw you into a tree,
it can throw you into someone else, it can throw you into the ice, it can do some damage.
V/O: When he arrived in Vancouver for the Para-Olympics Adam was ranked number 2 in
the world. As he raced he took that awful tumble.
The fact that he picked himself up and went onto win gold was as inspiring as the gold
medal itself.
Adam: By the time I got up and got to the bottom I skied the fastest probably than anybody
did on that course at all.
V/O: Tragedy struck shortly after Adam’s jubilant return to New Zealand. His mother
Gale, always Adam’s strongest advocate died in a car accident near the family home.
Adam: Those memories will always be in my head and in my heart, our saying there was
kia kaha no matter what happens stay strong and work through it and that seems to be something
that’s just worked all the way through the year, yeah our main saying for the year and
the whole team and the support that I’ve had around me mainly from the New Zealand
team was just being kia kaha stand strong and that’s all you can be and that’s all
you can really do.
V/O: Shooter Michael Johnson is a Para-Olympic gold and bronze medallist and New Zealand’s
first IPC shooting world champ.
Michael: When I first started about 8 years ago it was just a bit of a hobby to keep me
busy, yeah it sort of snowballed.
V/O: He also holds the world record in his class.
Michael: With target shooting you’ve really got to sort of take control of your body and
your mind.
V/O: Michael broke his neck in a car accident 14 years ago. His quadriplegia means he’s
unstable through his core, yet his aim is often pin perfect. He’s shooting world record
scores of 600 out of a possible 600 points.
Michael: Attitude to me is going beyond your limits, thinking outside the square and just
giving it heaps.
V/O: Carl Murphy burst onto the adaptive skiing seen in 2008 he’s the current New Zealand
Adaptive Snowboard Champion.
Carl: My goal is to get first place in at least one of the World Cups.
V/O: Carl was born with a congenital defect to his right leg and foot his leg was amputated
when he was 2 years old.
Carl: Growing up you know going through school with a disability and always competing at
the school level with able bodied kids I didn’t get the chance to win every often it’s an
awesome feeling competing with people with similar disabilities.
V/O: This year he won gold at the US Adaptive Association Nationals adding to his silver
medal at the 2009 World Champs he competes in boarder-cross it’s kind of like motor-cross
on the snow.
Carl: You can live your dreams and do what you put your mind to just because you’ve
got a disability or someone tells you you can’t do something I reckon it’s probably
the best reason to go out and try and do it.
V/O: He rides on a kiwi designed custom build prostatic skiing leg it’s sate of the art
technology with a carbon fibre shock absorber he goal going forward is a gold medal in the
2014 Winter Para-Olympics in Russia.
Kristy: The Attitude Spirit Award recognises that unsung hero in the community. It’s
a chance to remind the New Zealand public out there of the thousand’s of people living
with a big bold positive attitude. And the finalists for the Attitude Spirit Award are;
Elizabeth Charleston, Melanie Sloan and Pati Umaga.
V/O: Melanie Sloan encourages her students to make the most of every opportunity.
Melanie: Just reminding the kids that having a go is better than actually not doing anything.
V/O: Since she was a toddler she’s lived with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, she can’t
remember a day when she hasn’t been in chronic pain.
Melanie: There was a couple of pivotal moments where I kind of came to the realisation well
this is it and I can dwell on it or I can build a bridge and move on.
V/O: Doctors have replaced both hips, knees, and soon they’ll reconstruct her shoulders
in an effort to increase her flexibility and reduce pain.
Melanie: I was told I’d never be a teacher, it would be too physically demanding so of
course what did I do I applied for Teacher’s College just to prove them wrong and obviously
because I love kids so, I’ve just never looked back.
V/O: A full day’s teaching can take it’s toll still Melanie gathers the energy to help
others away from the classroom, she relieves the pressure for overburdened mums, organises
extra curricular activities and supports a young woman with an intellectual disability.
Melanie: So I just don’t like seeing people miss out when it could so easily somehow influence
their day by just doing what I do.
V/O: Pati Umaga knows all about life’s highs and lows. In the 1980’s his band the Holiday
Makers topped the music charts but in 2005 Patty had a fall, which left him with spinal
damage.
Pati: I slipped in the shower fell and fractured my neck, it was just like an ACC ad that I
saw that I use to just mock all the time and you think like know one falls like that.
V/O: Pati’s situation was compounded firstly by depression and then by the stigma surrounding
disability in the Pacific Island community.
Pati: For us as Samoan Pacific Islanders we hear stories about how our people with disabilities
are treated as thought they’ve been cursed.
V/O: Pati established the Wellington Pacifica Disability Network and went on to make an
oral submission to the United Nations on the rights of persons with disability. He also
wound up working alongside ACC as the chair of the serious injury advisory group.
Pati: Basically things like social justice social change it’s always been a passion
for me to fight for the underdog.
V/O: Elizabeth Charleston was a darling of the catwalk and equestrian scene before a
fall from a horse 5 years ago left her with a serious head injury. It ended her riding
dreams and left her managing ongoing chronic fatigue, but she slowly built a new life,
one with greater meaning.
Elizabeth: It’s given me a kick up the backside and I’ve had to give things another go with
a different perspective on it.
V/O: Lizzy has formed Think the head injury network for kiwis. She has shifted from riding
to managing the New Zealand show jumping team, she judges equestrian events and trains new
judges. She’s committed to supporting the Head Injury Association and campaigned for
safety helmets to be worn by equestrian riders.
Elizabeth: You have that fighting spirit within you, either you do or you don’t and I’m
fighting on, maybe it was just meant to be that this is how things were meant to unfold
for me.
V/O: Last years Attitude Awards introduced a Hall of Fame supported by the Lion Foundation.
The inaugural inductee was Robert Martin.
Robert: Truly a worthy first inductee to the Attitude Hall of Fame.
V/O: Born with an intellectual disability he was just a baby when he was placed in the
first of many foster homes. He went onto become a leading advocate for people living with
intellectual disability and has even presented to the United Nations.
Robert: To all the people with an intellectual disability that no longer live in institutions
we closed the last one in 2007 congratulations New Zealand.
V/O: At next week’s awards we’ll announce the 2010 inductee to the Attitude Hall of
Fame along with our 6 category winners.
Tanya: What can we say an extraordinary bunch of people and it’s going to be really tough
for the judges.
Dan: The winner of each award is up for the Attitude ACC Supreme Award.
Kristy: That honour comes with an Air New Zealand travel prize and a Toyota car for
a year.
Dan: Be watching next week when we bring you an hour long special from the awards.
Tanya: You won’t want to miss it, always a great night, and there’ some very special
entertainment.
Everyone: Bye. See you.