Introducing the New Horizons Team

(THEME) 00:06

New Horizons, it's up to you and me To shine a guiding light and lead the way United by our cause, we have the power To pursue what we believe We'll achieve the realisation of our dreams... 

Speaker 1 00:32

Hello, welcome to this episode of New Horizons. I'm Vaughan Bennison, thanks for your company. This week we focus on New Horizons specifically. You'll be aware that over the last few weeks we've been attempting to build a team to manage the content production and the presentation of New Horizons. Well, we've been successful - and we have some five or six people who have joined the team to assist me with the management and the production of the program. And contrary to popular rumour that's going around at the moment, I'm not stepping back from New Horizons anytime soon.

But what we seek to ensure at Blind Citizens Australia is that there are people who have the skills and the qualities required to keep things like New Horizons ongoing. So the idea is to upskill people in radio production, broadcast management and content delivery. So that is the key reason why we've established the team. New Horizons is not going anywhere soon, although there may be some changes. And if you're interested in being a part of the discussion of the future of New Horizons, there is an opportunity on Thursday, the 3rd of October, which is tomorrow as I record this program.

This week, we're going to introduce you to two members of the New Horizons team and they are Noora Remi and Jess Kendall. Noora, tell us a little bit about you. 

Speaker 2 01:48

Well, I live in Melbourne and I am fascinated with anything that has to do with expression. So I'm an artist by training. This was before I started losing my vision. I'm also a writer, and I love to use the power of the word to look at community development, personal development, and social transformation. It's my passion. It's what I've been doing since I was 13, and then I slowly became an activist and started getting involved in different areas of social life, and yeah, that's what I do. 

Speaker 1 02:25

So you've gained your vision impairment fairly recently. Tell us a little bit about that and the effect that it's had, particularly on your art. 

Speaker 2

Well... so when I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth in the States, I wanted to be a professional photographer, and I was also doing painting, and I slowly started to realise that I'm not performing as well as I used to partly because I was seeing colors all wrong and the things that I saw were very different than what other people saw and I never knew why. The good thing about the arts is that you can always say oh this is what I think it is and you can always find an explanation for it but then I personally started to dig into it and see what's wrong and then I realized that I was given this diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa and I thought my whole life came to an end to be honest.

I was in my early 20s and I was it was quite a shock and I just decided to just put the arts completely aside but then when I came to Australia I found this amazing group of artists who are vision impaired and they are still painting and doing arts and they have a lot of support from different institutions, they have each other and they invited me to their group and I started painting again. So yeah it's a it's like it's a new thing all over again.

Speaker 1 03:56

What do you think are the key things that attract you as a vision impaired person now to continuing to be a visual artist? 

Speaker 2 04:10

That's a very interesting question... so before, I would paint things that I see, and now I paint things that I don't see, I paint the unseen. So I paint things like emotions, feelings, relationships. So I started to lean more towards abstract art. I was absolutely against it when I was in art school for different crazy reasons that artists... have but now I started realising that it's a completely different realm, and I find that the best form of expression for me and yeah I've painted a few things for different human rights campaigns and in fact just yesterday someone came here and picked up my... to take it all the way to Canberra for some government officials who will be attending a human rights campaign. 

I'm super excited about that. I never thought that I'll go back to arts again and that my arts will have impacts on social transformation.

Speaker 1 05:15

And Jess we'll come to you now. Tell us a little bit about you. Where do you come from and what's your background?

Speaker 3

I come from, well currently I'm living in Toowoomba. I previously lived in Gold Coast and New South Wales and I was born in Melbourne. So I've lived in quite a few different areas. I have a background in creative writing and journalism. I did some voluntary work after completing my studies at a local community radio station on the Gold Coast. I'm writing news, copy and also general information pieces and also did some voluntary music journalism with fasterlouder.com.au - who, I'm not sure if they're around anymore. And Tsunami Music Magazine, interviewing different musicians and compiling feature articles on them. 

Also did some writing for the Gold Coast Interlaine Environment Council on various issues that faced the environment around there, like shark nets and drum lines and the efficacy and ethics surrounding those. And I've also got a background in social work so after I worked in journalism for a while I decided to pursue social work. And I went back to uni, I did a Masters of Social Work, worked in youth mental health, did a bit of volunteering with refugee youth and at a homework club as well in a tutoring capacity. And then moved to Toowoomba in 2015, studied a Masters of Human Services majoring in disability studies and got my current job, which I've been in since October 2017, working as a local area coordinator up here in Toowoomba.

Speaker 1 06:57

You mentioned some considerable work in journalism and community radio. What drew your interest to becoming a part of the New Horizons team? 

Speaker 3

Well I've always had an interest in learning and getting to know other people. I love socialising in general but also interviewing. I found very interesting, compiling questions and asking things I guess to delve beneath the surface of people's lives. And I also have a passion for social advocacy and social inclusion for all, including obviously blind and visually impaired people. I'm totally blind myself. And so I guess I was drawn to New Horizons because it married both of my interests together. And I thought I could develop some skills and learn and share from other people.

Speaker 1 07:47

And Noora, let's come back to you. What's your particular interest in New Horizons and where do you see your part in the programme? 

Speaker 2

Well, I believe in the power of the word, and in this age of technology and the internet, it's almost like our words have wings, and they can reach the whole globe. You never know, maybe even aliens from outer space will tune in one day. So, and having this love for social transformation, I feel podcasts can help our voices reach to people we never expect and create change. I think my areas of strength are speaking with people in the community and also generating a lot of ideas. I am crazy about generating ideas, I just have to find a way to execute them and I feel channeling them through a podcast will help me have wings.

Speaker 1 08:52

And of course we're all about ideas in New Horizons. You'll be aware that coming up this Thursday the 3rd of October we're having a discussion, a BCA conversation in fact about the future of New Horizons and what the program might look like on an ongoing basis. Jess you've done a bit of work in this area having sent out an email and got some responses from people over the last couple of weeks. What do you think the general feeling about the program and its relevance is?

Speaker 3 09:19

People are very interested in New Horizons. They find it relevant. They find tips and tricks for independent living and navigating the world helpful. They also find interviews of interest with different people. They didn't name anybody particularly. They did say that your presenting has always been excellent and other presenters as well. They say that podcast is a preferred method of listening just because they can listen to it whenever they choose and they can take it if they're out and about they can listen. 

Speaker 1 

Yeah, it's interesting the format hasn't really changed fundamentally since the program was first broadcast in 1982. There have been a number of different presenters across that 42 year space presenting the program and producing the program but predominantly the format and the style of the program really hasn't changed substantially in that time and I think with the advent of podcasting and the fact that we not only have our own podcast feed but it also comes through the Vision Australia Library and a lot of people get it through there means that if people aren't using the radio side of things and we consider the radio program part of things extremely important because it goes to community radio stations across Australia. 

But one of the things that we would like to talk about on Thursday is whether there is a way that we can change the format to to make it fit better for radio stations make it work better for those stations. Noora, you've come up with some ideas already about some of the things that we might feature in the program. Just talk about one or two of those, just to give people an idea of what sort of things we're talking about changing here.

Speaker 2 11:12

Yes, so I feel there are always general topics that everybody talks about when it comes to people with disabilities, specifically people with blindness and low vision. But I feel sometimes there are these little topics about day-to-day life that people don't talk about, even I don't talk about. And I realised from speaking with some of my friends that we are actually ashamed to talk about, and I feel that New Horizons will be able to shed light on these things. Little small things that are actually not very small, but they really affect our lives in a very big way.

So yeah, one example that would affect women... for example me and a group of friends were sitting at a cafe and talking the other day and they were saying, Oh I'm not sure how to put on my lip gloss without looking very messy... you know I was like, Oh I have the same issue, and she was like Really I don't know, I was... just I felt so stupid and stuff like that and I'm like, Oh no, and someone else was like Oh, I have all these... my hair, I just I'm not sure how to fix it because I can't look at myself in the mirror - how do I know that I look presentable? And like all these little small things, you won't go out there and say Hey, I need help with fixing my hair, can you help me?

But then when you have a group to talk about these little small things or when you have a Podcast that actually talks about these things that everybody feels ashamed to talk about and then you realize that oh It all shared the same issues and we can all support each other in different ways Even just some of those daily life tips and tricks like when you go out in public and you're out with a group of friends And you've got something you want to cut, you know, food you order, how do you make sure it doesn't go up the edge of your plate? Little things like that, public transport tips... 

Like a few friends of mine have guide dogs and they've had issues with cab drivers that refuse their dogs social get-togethers and the need for more I think, cohesion in the community - like even just to make sure buildings are accessible, or the public transport runs on time, or that there is enough public transport... I mean it just, little things like that, like buses don't tell you when what the next stop is. But the tram, well, or... the train does. It'd be good if they implemented something like that the audio-described performances and having more of those in the community, because the producers of them need to know there's a demand for these sort of things, like there are audio-described movies or TV shows, it's a similar sort of ilk.

Speaker 1 13:54

Noora Remi there, and Jess Kendall as well - part of the New Horizons team. And thanks to those and others for answering the call to action. And I know that we'll have a better quality program as a result. 

And a final reminder, if you want to be part of the New Horizons discussion on the 3rd of October at half past seven in the evening, it is a Zoom call. Check the BCA member update or have a look at the website for more information. If you'd like to get in touch with Blind Citizens Australia, you can call 1 800 033 -660... 1 800 033 660. Or you can email, bca@bca.org.au - BCA at BCA dot org dot AU. I'm Vaughan Bennison. I'll talk to you again next week. 

(THEME) We'll achieve the realization of our dreams Of our dreams...