Powerd NewsWrap 14th January 2026

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Welcome to a Vision Australia radio podcast. Love our podcasts. Why not listen to us live, tune in anywhere, anytime, ask your smart device to play Vision Australia radio, or visit va radio.org,

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on the Vision Australia and reading radio networks. This is the Powerd news rap you.

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Good day. I'm Sam Ricard. It's the 14th of January. We're reading articles. Well, we are reading an article from the Powerd dot media website, plus an interesting bit of content. Well, I of course, as normal. Welcome Emma Myers, who is the brains behind all of this. G'day. Emma, good day. Sam, I don't know whether I've got too many brains, but one's enough for my noggin. Well, it's the start of the year. We can always get smarter as we go along. So how have things been going as you've been settling back into the work life balance as it were, Good Sam, it's been a bit slow to begin with. Everyone's getting back into the slinger things. So, um, I'm hoping that work will pick up in the next couple of days. This time of the year is always tricky, because a lot of people are still on holidays or still in holiday mode, so they don't necessarily want to talk to us. I've been having trouble finding interviews here as well. So it's it'll pick up. Got a couple of interesting articles. So we are talking about wheelchairs for kids, for example. Yeah, so this is a great charity initiative that essentially builds affordable wheelchairs to send to developing countries. So for kids who would otherwise be stuck crawling around or in their bed, they can actually dance on the independence and so this is in conjunction with the Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific. And so maybe tell us a little bit more about the program itself. Cathay Pacific have partnered with wheelchairs for kids and so their frequent fly program, instead of using points to buy fly, she can use points to buy parts of or or a full wheelchair, which Cathay was, will then fly to the countries that need them, and obviously, as we said, very much needed anyway. In the meantime, let's hear the entire story, and we'll be back afterwards, because we're doing something a little bit different.

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Children with disability in developing countries could soon receive Australia made wheelchairs thanks to a new partnership between an international airline and a Perth based charity, wheelchairs for kids Australia or wfka, a not for profit, which builds wheelchairs for children in third world countries, has partnered with Hong Kong based airline Cathay, who says the move will see its members donate through the company's frequent flyer program to deliver wheelchairs to children around the world. There is a global shortage of wheelchairs for children living in developing countries, with more than 10 million needed right now, according to wheelchairs for kids Australia,

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CEO of wheelchairs for kids Australia, Greg hebble said the organization is thrilled to be partnering with Cathay through the Asia Miles program. We hope to create greater awareness to the plight of children in developing countries who cannot access a wheelchair for just $300

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we can change that and give these kids mobility, dignity and hope for a brighter future through Cathay's partnership with wfka, passengers, can Select wheelchair parts or choose to donate the whole setup through Asia, miles or miles, plus cash. Cathay regional General Manager Southeast Asia and Oceana, frosty Lau says the company's commitment to Perth over the last 50 decades makes the partnership a great union the team of wheelchairs for kids. Australia, does an incredible job of supplying wheelchairs to children in developing countries. It is an honor to be able to support them as a charity partner as we head into the end of the year and a time of giving, we are.

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Asking our members to donate and help change the life of another child in need. According to the charity's website, wheelchairs for kids Australia is supported by more than 250

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regular volunteers with an average age of 74 years old, and has already delivered over 66,000

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All Terrain wheelchairs to 80 countries across the globe since 1998

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one of its volunteers and co founder of the organization, brother Thomas Oliver or Ollie Pickett AM, was named as senior Australian of the Year this year, speaking with the ABC, Mr. Pickett says seeing the joy on children's faces once they are sitting comfortably in a chair gives them satisfaction to keep going. There are so many kids in the world that need a wheelchair for all sorts of reasons. At wheelchairs for kids, we have a mission statement. We listen, we care. We give to children with disabilities around the world. He says, what we're trying to do with these little kids is to give them a new life, just a better life than what they're having. If you wish to know more, go to wheelchairs for kids.org.

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Forward slash, get involved. You can, of course, find this and other links in the podcast notes for the show.

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Thank you. Lexi, all right, so we are doing something just a tad different this time around, and probably pay us to actually talk about it because we're talking about sex, baby, yep.

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So where's this this story start from? I mean, how did you

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approach this to start out, was, was there a news release or something like that? I mean, what got you onto this one? Well, funnily enough, the person who we're about to hear from I worked with at a panel last year. They were moderating a panel that I was on talking about sex and disability, because I co created a show on sex and disability. And then early this year, I've stumbled across an article about this project that has been created by Northcott and the New South Wales Government to kind of educate people with disability on their rights when it comes to sex and consent. And I think that's a great topic, because a lot of the time you don't know your boundaries until someone crosses them. I loved this interview. I thought that he was they refer to themselves as they then after something else, quite unusually, and we're going to find that out. Thank you for correcting me on that one. I didn't even think about it all right. So without further ado,

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Emma Myers, your time has come to shine.

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So Pat, can you tell me a little bit about what you do and your pronouns. Absolutely. My name is Patrick Rory John. My pronouns are that bitch? No, I'm kidding. My pronouns are they them?

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Put that in the article.

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Hashtag that bitch,

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and what do I do? I do lots of things, I guess, predominantly, I am a psychotherapist, you know, supporting diverse people, people with disabilities, people within the LGBTQIA plus community, in improving their relationships with themselves and with others. So can you tell me, firstly, a little bit about love rights? To share a little bit about love rights. Love rights is an education, or series of kind of education, resources and films, along with training, which is equipping staff, as well as people with disability, on understanding very important concepts around consent, relationships, sexuality and safety. It's a preventative based model that works to prevent violence towards people with disability that is, unfortunately, a lot higher and more prevalent within our community than in others. And why was live rights created in the first place. The project was created due to a gap in the industry, particularly in the area of domestic, family and sexual violence, where there may be resources out there and support out there to help people become more aware, but they weren't accessible to people with disability, a lot of people for a variety.

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Reasons whether they've got a cognitive disability, a physical disability, a lot of these resources, training and support wasn't accessible, which made no sense, because a person with a disability is far more likely to be at risk of victimization to domestic, family and sexual violence than anyone else. Do you know why there's this gap? There are a lot of reasons. One would be that a lot of people with disability are seen as asexual. They're seen as either incapable of being in relationships or that they don't even have a sex drive. They have no interest in romantic, sexual or any other form of relationship. Often people with disability are infantilized, and so they are treated and seen as children. Because of that, from the very get go, they don't receive that very vital information from parents, carers, educators on sex education, on consent, boundaries, sexual pleasure. And so for anyone, disability or not, if you're not taught about these really important concepts that help build healthy relationships, how do you then know when a relationship is unhealthy, when your boundaries are being violated, when you don't know what your boundaries are? You were never taught them. And did you have any input into the design of these resources at all? All of our resources were co designed, and our resources were taken to focus groups and were reviewed, and, yeah, by people with lived experience, people with disability, people who have a disability and have experienced domestic, family or sexual violence, which I think is really key. And so yes, while I led and played a huge part in the creation of these resources. It could not have been possible without the lived experience of the whole community. I just think it's really great that these conversations are being had. I think regardless of how people receive it, in the general population, there's so much controversy still around people with disability having a sexuality or having sexual interests. I think the sad thing about this is I find a lot of these stories gain interest and traction when either we only look at people with disability as romantic and cute, I feel like there's still an infantilization there of people with disability. It's kind of like this sympathy versus empathy. But what we're really talking about with this particular project love riots is we're actually seeing them as fully sexual beings who not only are able to equip and safeguard themselves just with the right supports, but to have happy, healthy, amazing sexual lives.

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But normally I'd say thank you to whoever was the news reader, but I'll just have to say thank you, Emma for the interview. You can't see me, but I'm doing a bow that works on so many different different levels there. Anyway. So what are you working on for us for the next couple of weeks or so? Well, next week, I'm actually continuing on from the fabulous Patrick and I'm doing an article on sex and consent. So it'll have their opinion, and then it'll also have the acting CEO of life without barriers. So stay tuned for that. And I'm also going back to everyone's favorite, love to hate topic, foundational support. So yay, the catch phrase that keeps on giving. But in the meantime, that's a wrap for this rap. We'll be back course back next week. Bye, for now, bye.

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You can find these articles and more by going to Powerd spelt, P, O, W, E, R, D, dot media, along with the podcast of this show, the Powerd news rap was brought to you by disability media Australia. This show was produced by Sam Rickard in the Adelaide studios of Vision Australia radio Sam.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai