The ABC is featuring stories by people with disability in partnership with the International Day of People with Disability.

From November 19 to December 10, the ABC celebrates the wins, highlights the struggles, and shares the stories of millions of Australians with disability.

December 3 is the United Nations’ International Day for People with Disability (IDPwD), a day to increase awareness, understanding, and acceptance of people with disability.

The theme for 2024 is “Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future”.

For more information on the theme, visit the United Nations website.

What the ABC is doing

Over three weeks, you will hear people’s stories across the ABC’s radio networks, from ABC Classic, Radio National, triple j, Radio Australia, and ABC Kids Listen, as well as ABC local radio stations across the country.

You can also rock out to ABC Radio’s Spotify playlist for IDPwD 2024 featuring musicians with disability.  

Radio programs are available for on-demand playback online after broadcast. Transcripts will also be provided on audio on demand.

The ABC will share a series of IDPwD social media reels and videos across its social media accounts. These short-form videos aim to entertain, educate, and celebrate the lived experiences of individuals with disability.

For IDPwD, ABC Big Kids Collections will feature key episodes from shows like Hardball, Disrupted Films, Fearless Films, and What’s It Like. 

The collection also includes popular titles like Riley Rocket and Play School Story Time.

For Landline’s last program of the year, airing on December 1, the story of Rise and Shine Eggs will showcase how siblings Alistair and Heather Pearce offer career opportunities to people living with a disability at their chicken farm near Adelaide.

In upcoming Gardening Australia episodes, presenter Jane Edmanson meets a group of autistic adults gaining employment skills through a tailored gardening program run by Autism Spectrum Australia (ASPECT). 

Viewers are also introduced to Maree Jenner, a gardener advocating for the destigmatisation of dwarfism and inclusion of short-statured people like herself in social spaces, including her community garden in Woy Woy, NSW. 

On ABC iview, you can stream the entire new music series Headliners. Hosted by Elly-May Barnes, the series follows her ambitious quest to form two bands entirely made up of musicians living with disability. 

With support and inspiration from Australian music royalty, including her rock legend father, Jimmy Barnes, Elly-May helps transform a group of strangers into must-see acts in a live performance at a sell-out iconic music event — all within just seven weeks.

ABC iview will also feature a disability collection that highlights the diversity of experiences and perspectives from people with disabilities. 

This includes Sophie Morgan’s Fight to Fly, where Sophie takes direct action to hold airlines accountable for the mistreatment of disabled passengers and is available from December 1.

Additionally, the documentary Tides of Change: Para Athletes of the Pacific will air on That Pacific Sports Show and ABC iview on December 4. 

The documentary explores the lives, challenges, and achievements of Pasifika para-athletes from Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands.

The film is a celebration of human resilience and cultural pride and seeks to inspire future generations while advocating for increased support for para-sports.

Our storyteller scholarship

The IDPwD partnership also funds the ABC Storyteller Scholarship, an early-career program for two content makers with lived experience of disability. 

Comedian Madeleine Stewart, one of the scholarship winners, is producing six videos with Compass, set to be featured across ABC TikTok and other social media platforms. 

Her first video, Get A Job, humorously explores the challenges of employment for people with disability. 

Other videos include A Period Drama, which examines menstruation through the lens of women with disability, and two vox pops that reveal the surprising, sometimes shocking, and often funny aspects of everyday life with disability.

The second scholarship winner, Dan Jacob, is collaborating with ABC Radio Hobart to produce a digital article on a Tasmanian musician who has successfully broken into the challenging US music scene. 

Dan is also creating a radio package exploring the transition of an elderly person from their home to aged care, with a particular focus on the challenges faced by those living with disabilities.

Celebrating disability leadership

As part of IDPwD activities the ABC is a sponsor of the Disability Leadership Institute’s Disability Leadership Oration.

The oration is an annual discussion on disability leadership and this year will feature Indigenous disability researcher and advocate Dr Scott Avery as the keynote speaker.

The event will be held at Canberra’s National Archive on November 26 and will air nationally on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program on the International Day of People with Disability — Tuesday, December 3.

Bookmark this page as we will publish links to IDPwD content as it becomes available over the next few weeks.