A Day in the Life: Sarah's Journey

It is rude to stare but not to treat Paralympians equal.   Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash The Paralympics is over for another three years; we have had one of the most successful Paralympics ever with numerous Paralympic and world records that have been destroyed, all after two years of not competing in competitions. The athletes of the Olympics also participated under the same conditions. Still, there is one main difference, in my opinion, which makes this Paralympics even more special than ever before, and that is everything else they have had to deal with over the past two years. We have seen some emotional scenes with athletes who achieved against all odds, not letting their disability stop them from achieving their dreams. Living through the Pandemic has disproportionately affected disabled people of all abilities and backgrounds. Paralympians are no exception; not only have Paralympians had the same restrictions as the Olympians, for example, no competitive play, but they ...

The issue of Access is often a contentious one, if you talk to someone with a disability then there is always problems with not enough being done, yet if you talk to people in authority there are always excuses as to why more can not be done. I appreciate that there are times when it is not possible for there to be access to something be it the physical limitations of the person themselves (e.g. rock climbing) or through buildings being so old that they can't be adjusted enough to be fully accessible. Although this is the case, organisations will often hide behind 'reasonable adjustment', expecting disabled people to just accept that as much is being done as possible. As mentioned above, I appreciate there are some limitations with buildings that are really old and that I will not be able to get everywhere that I may want to, but I still feel that often more can be done than is currently being done so. Companies should want to do as much as they can to include everyone (at ...

Disability in the media has always played an important role in shaping the lives of disabled people. For many years the only stories shown were that of sob stories and those who have achieved great things against the odds.  There are two main areas of Disability and the media that I would like to cover. Firstly that of the effect the media has on disabled sport and secondly that of the news and the limited coverage of disabled people's issues.   Media and the effect that it has on disability is a hot topic for many at the moment, due to much of the media that is portrayed being of the negative persuasion. Disability is often in the media eye for many of the wrong reasons, and if not directly wrong reasons, it is usually for something like that of Oscar Pistorius where the discussion was around his ability and whether it would be fair for him to join mainstream sport (there has also been other negative press unrelated to the sport of him but that's another story altogether...