00:05S1
This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.
00:11S2
I find it while it was a start. No, no.
00:19S3
Hello, I'm Lizzie and I'm Heidi, and you're listening to studio one, Vision Australia radio's weekly look at life from a blind and low vision point of view. On this week's show, it's International Women's Day and I am joined by special guest Heidi Rickard.
00:34S4
Yes, we've kicked Sam out of the studio this week, and we're taking the opportunity to talk about some amazing women with inspiring stories.
00:41S3
As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience with any of the issues discussed on this week's episode of Studio One, or whether you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know. Your story or insight may help somebody else who's dealing with something similar.
00:58S4
You can email us at Studio One at Vision Australia dot org... that's studio1@visionaustralia.org
01:07S3
Crazy. Hello, Heidi.
01:10S4
Hello, Lizzy.
01:11S3
It is good to see you once again.
01:14S4
Yes. It wasn't that long ago, was it?
01:16S3
No. And this is such a great opportunity for us to catch up because it's coming up to International Women's Day.
01:23S4
Yes, very important day.
01:24S3
So I was actually doing a bit of research into International Women's Day for this week's show. And did you know that as early as 1909, there were some countries in Europe that were already celebrating women's rights? Yep.
01:38S4
That doesn't actually surprise me. I've just recently read a series of books set in World War One in London, and it part of it talked about the the suffragettes and what they were all about. Wow. They sounded like a full on group of women. That's what I can say about that.
01:55S3
Yeah, I actually watched a lot of documentaries. I watched one specific documentary about women's prisons in England, and a lot of the women's prisons were filled with suffragettes.
02:07S4
Yes, that's correct, because they just as I said, they were just mad. They they didn't care.
02:11S3
No. And mental asylums too. I can't believe they used to lock them away. And you know that women's rights were treated with such folly. You know, people didn't take them seriously back then.
02:21S4
Well, thank goodness we've come a long way since then.
02:24S3
We certainly have. And I also came across in my readings, the International Women's Day was not globally recognised by the UN until 1977.
02:33S4
And that's not really that long ago, is it?
02:35S3
Not really. I mean, it's I'm my parents are that old. So, you know, it's well, it's not that long ago it all was probably.
02:42S4
Going to give my age away. That was my first year of primary school. Wow.
02:46S3
Really? Yes, 1977. It was amazing. Yep. There you go. Yeah. And I think the reason that it became such a global phenomenon, I suppose, is because of the women's rights movements of the 60s.
02:58S4
Yes, exactly. Yep. They're certainly starting to make some noise. Back then.
03:02S3
They were. Well, we are talking to some amazing women with inspiring stories, as we alluded to in the beginning of the show. And I think the first one we're going to talk to is Franca.
03:13S4
Ah, yes. I think I've heard her on the show before. So yep, look forward to hearing what she has to say.
03:22S3
Happy International Women's Day, Franka, do you two. Yeah, I think you are one of the busiest women that I know. That's fair ish for a fact. I mean, you're always traveling or doing something or on some committee, and I think it's always been that way for you, hasn't it?
03:38S5
It has. But I've been a lot busier this year for sure. Yeah. Now the chairperson for the overnight committee, and that is definitely keeping me busy. And I'm also the secretary for the travel club and...
03:52S3
That's for Beyond Blindness. Right. Yeah.
03:54S5
And then I'm also organising some day trips for Beyond Blindness and then my private trip. So I've got a lot on my plate. I'm waiting more now than when I did at work.
04:06S3
So speaking of work, what jobs did you do? Because I actually hear that you had quite a successful career.
04:11S5
I did, I worked at the Commonwealth Bank. At first that was straight after working, uh, going to Pride's Business college. So I was in the typing pool. In those days, they didn't have computers showing my age there. And then I started working in call centres because my vision was getting gradually a little bit worse. So that was easier because I could adapt the computer. Yeah. And yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of writing. It was mainly typing and I sold insurance. And then I went into financial institution and help people set up accounts or apply for loans, set up investments, that kind of thing.
04:52S3
So you've always just you've always been the go getter type of person I have. Yeah. Yeah.
04:58S5
I've never been the victim. You know, I don't define myself as a vision impaired person. I'm just a. I like to compete with other people, and it was great because they would actually measure your sales and it would be on a board, and I would be at the top in one place. I used to get a sales award on average once every two months, and that was against sighted people so they could see, you know, it was nice to have that measure to prove to people that I could achieve the same or better than them.
05:31S3
Yeah, that's amazing because you are definitely like one of the most hard working people I know, even on the committees that you've been on in the past and the trips that you organize, like everything's really well run and you always do. You do diligence. Yes. Yeah. It's amazing. And I don't I don't want to say this because you said you don't really put or count. Visual impairment is a large part of your identity. So is that why you you love to travel and things like that? You you don't feel limited by your visual impairment.
06:04S5
There are some limits, but we travel within those limits. Basically, some of the travel that we do with Beyond Blindness, with the overnight trips, you have a volunteer there and you have someone to follow or um, but then on some of the other trips that I do with oxide, I go with a friend who's also vision impaired, and we help each other. We have different types of vision, so it works well. And so, you know, I'm not sure that I would get on a flight on my own and go to Europe and travel Europe on my own, that I would travel in a group situation where, yeah. Yeah, it just makes it easier and safer, I think.
06:49S3
Yeah. And I think this isn't the first Oz wide tour you've done with just the peer review, but I think that would be I mean, there's there's still so much to see in Australia that you don't really need to travel aboard that much.
07:01S5
No, no. Yeah. The last trip we did was Great Ocean Road, and that was absolutely spectacular scenery. And every time you'd see we'd stop for a different rock formation or scenery. And we think, I can't get better than this. And then, you know, half an hour down the road, it got better than that, and you couldn't believe it. But yeah, it was just amazing. It just got better and better as we travelled along.
07:28S3
You know, I just think it's incredible when, you know, I get to meet other females that are out there doing different things and organizing different things. And we're going to talk to a number of females on this program that that do that. And you definitely, like I said, the busiest woman I know and the most well organised. So well done. Thank you very much. All right. Well, thanks. We chatted with us on this brilliant day. Thank you. Yes, that was Franca. And as she said when I spoke to her, she has worked a large majority of her life doing insurance sales and call centers for financial institutions. And I think it's fantastic that in this day and age, with the advent of organisations and technology, there has been a push to have blind and vision impaired women employed, and you yourself have actually held employment for quite a long time, haven't you?
08:29S4
Yes, for the majority of my employment life, and I'm talking around about 33 years, I've been with the South Australian government for the majority of that time. I was with an agency now known as Safework SA, but I saw it through several name changes back in the 90s. But my latest job is with the education department. I've been there just over two years now.
08:50S3
So what sort of work do you do with the education department?
08:53S4
OK, I'm in their work health and safety unit. My job title is Work Health and Safety Advisor, so I'm providing work health and safety advice to all of the the schools, schools, kindergartens, all of the education sites basically. So that's my main. My main job is that as well as looking at the incident reports that come in from the sites and seeing if there's anything that our unit needs to go and help a school with, where health and safety is concerned.
09:20S3
And do you like your job?
09:21S4
I love my job.
09:22S3
Wow, that's amazing. And that's incredible. I mean, the opportunity to be able to go into schools and hear from teachers and meet the kids as well.
09:32S4
That's not me. I'm a desk. My my job is very desk based. We do have people in my section that go out and do that. They're called business partners. So yeah, that's that's their job to so I'm sort of part of the team that feeds the information to the business partners. And then they go out and sort out whatever needs to be sorted out.
09:50S3
And speaking of businesses, we're going to speak to a woman now who created her own business from the ground up, and I believe she's a friend of yours.
09:58S4
Ah, yes. Yes. Sonya. Yes, sir. And I go back a long way.
10:02S3
All right, well, let's chat to Sonya. Excellent. Sonia, it's so good to see you again. How have you been? I've been well.
10:12S2
Thanks, Lizzy. Great to see you again, too.
10:14S3
Yeah, and happy International Women's Day.
10:16S2
Thank you. And right back at you.
10:19S3
I thought I'd have a chat to you because you actually own your own business. So I would love to hear from you as to how you got started and all of the kind of things that go into that. So what do you do?
10:31S2
So I'm a remedial massage therapist and how I got into, I guess being a remedial massage therapist and owning my own business, I did athletics and then cycling for the Paralympics and represented Australia, and I was working at the time at a telecommunications company who sponsored the 2000 games, which enabled me to be in the office and then spend a lot of time overseas training to, I guess, reach the goals that we wanted and achieved at Sydney 2000. Yep. From there, I continued on that journey to represent Australia at World Championships and European Championships. But after I think it was 2009, we no longer had jobs, unfortunately.
So therefore I was at home then on my second lot of maternity leave with a toddler and a newborn, I'm thinking, what way am I going to go? Bearing in mind then my husband was also doing shift work. We live. I guess our families live remote to us. So it was like, what can I do that I can manage? The kids bring in some income as well as do something that I'm passionate about. And having done a lot of sport and a degree in sports management and a bit of sports science and psychology, I decided to marry them and create my own, uh, remedial massage business.
12:11S3
Well it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? You know, coming from a sporting career to then help other athletes or people just be able to move better and feel better. So that's amazing that you could you could find a profession that married those two passions together.
12:26S2
I love it. It's great to help people perform at their best. And when I say perform at their best, it's whether it's doing daily tasks around the house, whether it's being an elite athlete, whether it's helping them get out to be their weekend warrior they are, but being able to support them in optimising how their body works and even a bit of psychology in there to how they can believe in themselves and achieve their goals.
12:58S3
And it's funny that you should say that, because we were talking before a little bit about success and how people measure success. And I suppose what's great about being a massage therapist is no matter what the person's goals are, or ideas of success when it comes to movement and mobility, you can be there to support them through that.
13:16S2
Absolutely. And it is very rewarding, very rewarding watching other people succeed. I believe that that's a level of my success with how people take what they gain from my treatments and, and show up in their life for sure.
13:32S3
Yeah, I actually got a massage from you before I went out. You did. And I got to say, I felt amazing, like I just I went into it well-rested and it was amazing. So how did you actually set up your business? Like what was the process of starting a business?
13:49S2
Okay. So obviously I've done a lot of business and accounting through my degree. I've done some, I guess some sports sciency subjects, but I didn't have the qualifications of being a remedial massage therapist. So I had to then return to do my cert for in massage and then my remedial, which I did have a gap just due to logistics and being able to to get into the classroom to do it. Yeah. I also did my bone therapy, which is, I guess, a tactile therapy that was invented by Tom bone, who comes from Geelong. So it's an Australian therapy. Wow. Cool. And it is recognised all over the world.
So there was the logistics of going to the course and actually studying and getting my qualifications. But then there was the behind the scenes of setting up a business and getting an ABN, doing some marketing. So being present in my community and going to the gym and my kids go to karate and just getting my flyers out there to say, hey, this is what I do. A bit of self-promotion, I guess, and having a good referral system from chiropractors to physios, to podiatrists and all working, to refer people to each other, which you've kind of got a network in Allied health. To do that. Oh for sure. Yeah, but there was a whole heap of paperwork behind the scenes.
It's like anything. If you'd known how big it was, you probably would have thought, oh, gosh, I don't know whether I can do that. But when you just step in and just do it because it's like, oh, well, I've got nothing else, I'll do this. Yeah, it's very rewarding to see it all come together. And to start with, I guess I built up slowly. So here's a fun fact for you. The average life of a massage therapist is 5 to 7 years. Oh so sure, because unfortunately, while massage therapists look after everyone else like, not a lot of them self care for themselves.
15:48S3
No, I guess not.
15:49S2
So they sort of come out of, I guess, study and they're all gung ho and they can do the, the deep massages and they can churn out the numbers because they can do it. But, uh, they neglect, I guess, to look after themselves. And that's where they wear themselves down. So I started out slowly because fortunately I could due to my husband working, I could do, you know, three, five a week and just slowly built up word by mouth. And that's probably the best referrals I've got. And that's certainly built me a solid foundation for now.
16:24S3
Well, you've got quite an impressive, uh, massage room around here. And it's like, you know, it's very calm and serene. How did you go about getting all of the supplies and things that you needed? Did you have support or was it something you just had to reach out? And so so.
16:40S2
I have a clinic out the back of my, my premises, like my house. So it's like a granny flat. It's a separate entrance into it. So we had a room there already, but we had to knock it down and rebuild because the building there was, you know, had holes in the walls or anything, so we couldn't use that. So we ended up just like destroying that and rebuilding. Uh, so we did have to get a builder in to do all that for us. And we discussed what the purpose of the building was for. So he had a clear understanding, and he's done a fantastic job of it. And then I guess things like, you've got to make sure you've got massage beds and I guess it's a matter of first of all, I had to portable because I do have two massage rooms. I tend to go from one to the other.
Some people can't go on that bed, but they can go on the other bed because I do have different beds in the rooms. But I started with two portable beds. I started with less towels and what I've got now. So I guess you just sort of build up to, okay, this is what I can afford. I'll buy this bed. And then when I could justify it, I bought two electric beds, which has been the best investment ever.
17:52S3
Amazing. And I suppose that just going back to the fact that you are a remedial massage therapist, but you also are vision impaired, it's a great job for you, I guess, because you can go by feel. You don't really have to see too much what you're doing. Is that correct?
18:08S2
It is the perfect fit for me. Some people say, oh, a massage. That's so, so physical. It's such hard work, but I don't find that at all. I think it's really important to self care and and keep yourself strong. And I do that by going to the gym and keeping fit. But it allows me to be stress free at work. I'm not straining my eyes. I'm not squinting at a computer. Of course, I do use a computer and we have to keep notes, but it's not sitting at a computer 40 hours a week. So for me it's a fantastic fit.
18:45S3
So do you ever go to other massage therapists to get a massage? Absolutely. Like super critical of their technique and stuff. What do you just try to turn the work brain off?
18:57S2
When I walk into somebody else's clinic, I do turn what I what do they say? Be skeptical, but learn to listen. I do look around because I like to learn off other people, so I don't like to walk into their space and be that judge. I like to walk into their space and say, look, I'm here for a treatment from you. What can I learn off of you? And just to get a massage that I enjoy.
19:27S3
Thank you so much for talking to me. I really love talking to you. Every every time we speak, I feel like I'm learning something interesting, whether it be about cycling or massage or just everyday mobility and stuff. It's just it's so great to see women out and about in the blind and vision impaired community, doing what they love doing, marrying their passions and and finding professions that suit them. So well done to you and keep up the fantastic work.
19:55S2
Thanks, Lizzy. And and same goes you. You and Sam are doing fantastic job on these podcasts, so keep up the great work at Studio One.
20:05S3
Thank you, and I'll come and get a massage from you again sometime. Cheers. So there you go. And you've actually been friends with Sonya for quite a while?
20:14S4
Yes. Uh, since about the mid 90s.
20:17S3
So how did you get to meet her?
20:19S4
Through Blind Sport. She was, she just came in to doing athletics, I think, in early 90s, 91, 92. So I met her originally at the 1992 National Blind Championships, which happened to be in Adelaide. And then over the years, we just became close friends. She continued on with her sport. By this time I'd, I'd stopped and I was probably a bit of a bad influence occasionally. But anyway, ushe's still turned out all right. So... but no, she's a she's a lovely person. She is very inspiring. And, yeah, you could learn a lot from her.
20:53S3
Definitely. I, I always, like I said before, I always feel like I learn a lot from her. And she definitely is the kind of woman that stands like she stands for other women. She empowers other women. Yes. And that's fantastic to see, especially in a sporting capacity, because I feel like as athletes, we are pitted against each other constantly and we are almost driven to not try to be friends with other athletes or, you know, they are the enemy, the competition is the enemy. And so for someone like her to come on board and empower other women through her business through massage, it's fantastic.
21:35S4
And she's a very good masseur.
21:36S3
She is. Ah, I can attest to that personally. So, yes. Well, we were going to be interviewing Lauren Henley, who was awarded 2023 Blind Australian of the Year by Vision Link. But unfortunately, due to some scheduling issues, we weren't able to do that. However, we did speak to her late last year and I started off by asking her how she lost her sight.
22:05S6
Yes, I was in a motor vehicle accident when I was 20 years old, so it was pretty much lights on, lights off. I woke up in the hospital with no vision whatsoever. Both of my eyes had been ruptured because my face hit the steering wheel and they then had to be removed. So it was then learning how to deal with life without vision.
22:22S3
So what sort of support did you receive after the accident, and was it hard to get back to life as normal?
22:28S6
I think I was very fortunate to be honest. I received fantastic support. I couldn't fault the level of support I received. I actually was able to learn Braille while I was still in hospital. I had someone from Vision Australia come out and help me with that. I was linked in with Guide Dogs while I was still in hospital, so by the time I got back home, I could automatically access services and get the ball rolling with that. And I think the thing that made the biggest difference in my experience was the fact that I was connected to other people who were blind or vision impaired very, very early on in the piece.
And it meant that I could see what was possible because I suddenly had all these people in my life who had lived this for many years. They had been blind or visually impaired for many years for various reasons. And I could see that they were getting out there doing things, living their lives independently. They were happy, healthy, and it gave me hope and promise that one day I'd be able to get to where they were as well.
23:16S3
That's absolutely fantastic and very fortunate, because I've actually come across a lot of people lately who have gone blind later in life, either through accidents or through disease and illness. And they're finding that at the moment, there's not a lot of support around for them to access the community, and they find it really hard to link in with other services. So I'm really glad that you were able to to link in with the Vision Australia and Guide Dogs. Was it hard for you to accept the loss of your vision, or was it something that you were able to just deal with?
23:50S6
I don't know that anyone to deal with it super well immediately, because it is a huge life transition and because of my age, I was at a point in my life where I'd really decided what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and that was very much working outdoors, doing physical labor. That's what I loved. So I couldn't do that anymore. It wasn't really just adjusting to life without vision. It was adjusting to different expectations of what my life would look like and what I'd be able to do because I could no longer do do a lot of the things I enjoyed. I couldn't do the career I once did. I used to play squash. I couldn't do that anymore. I used to do karate. I still do karate now, so I've been able to get back into that. But for a long time I didn't think that was possible.
So I was in grief. It was really, really hard and for probably about six months, I honestly wanted to end it because I was such a visual person that I couldn't imagine how I could be happy without vision. So it was a very dark time for a while, no pun intended, but because of the people I was introduced to and the connections I made, I was able to get through that and come out the other side and I've been able to thrive.
24:48S3
So you say that you enjoyed outdoor work outdoors and being with nature, do you? Are you still able to go outdoors and hike or do anything in nature these days?
24:58S6
Only in the last couple of years, and I think having access to support workers has really shifted that. And I'm really sad that not everyone has access to support workers, which is one of the things that fuels my passion for advocacy, because funding in the disability policy area is very inequitable. But yeah, I've been fortunate enough in the last few years to be able to access someone to take me out for beach walks, hiking, whatever it is I want to do. And what's been a game changer for me is during Covid, I actually learned how to get down to a nature trail about a 20 minute walk from where I live, and there's forks in the path all over the place, and I just looked at that initially and thought, that's going to be impossible.
But with the help of a really good orientation and mobility instructor, we set up some different, um, markers with GPS technology, which I don't need anymore because I know the rises and falls in the paths and different sounds and things so I can get down there on my own with my guide dog whenever I want. And it's fantastic just to be in nature. And that's what resets me and really gives me a lot of peace and joy.
25:57S3
So how were you introduced to advocacy work and when? When did this come about?
26:01S6
Very accidentally, I've got to be honest. So I as I said, there was a very, I lived in Newcastle and it's a very strong, blind and vision impaired community there at the time. So I had peer support, I had people around me, and at that time people were talking about trying to form a branch or Blind Citizens Australia in Newcastle, because one didn't exist. So we got that over the line and we were able to form a branch. And one of my friends came up to me and said, if we nominate you as president, what do you accept? And I'm like, oh yeah, whatever. I'm thinking that I wouldn't get in. And, you know, didn't really think much of it. But then I was named president. I didn't really know what the word advocacy meant at that point.
So I just thought, I don't know, really what this is going to consist of. But I do know that enough of these people have put their faith in me to facilitate a process for them that I don't want to screw that up. So I took it really, really seriously. And I put everything I put into that role. And I'd like to think we did some really positive things while I was president of the Newcastle Hunter branch. So that was really my start in the advocacy game. And because I was a known quantity to blame Citizens Australia when a paid role came up, I was able to get my foot in the door and I got that paid role. So that's where it all started.
27:14S3
So what sort of things were you able to achieve with Blind Citizens Australia.
27:18S6
So when I was branch president, it was very locally based. So we worked with the local council to establish a sensory garden on Newcastle Foreshore, which is still there today. We were able to get tactile ground surface indicators installed at a local shopping centre. There were various other things we did as well as a staff member working for Blind Citizens Australia, we did a lot of advocacy around audio description and that eventually led to audio description becoming available in cinemas. Yeah, there's there's a lot of things, but they're not things that I can claim sole responsibility for because it's always a team effort.
27:50S3
Yeah. Of course. So explain your role with the AFP. What is the AfDB and what is your role there?
27:57S6
Yeah. So after is the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations and it's really a peak of peak bodies. So our organisational structure is we are a federated model. So we exist at the national level. And then underneath that we have member organisations across Australia. So we have 37 member organisations and they can represent very different cohorts. So as an example a few of our members we've got blind citizens Australia, polio Australia, Miss Australia, Deaf Blind Australia, Deaf Australia and what it means is it puts us in a really unique position to go to government with a considered perspective on things.
Because we've consulted with those 37 member organisations, we've collected all that expertise, we've collated it into one nice policy position, and we're going to government and saying, look, we know this is going to work because all of these organisations back it, and that's making your life easier because they don't have 37 different organisations coming to them with a different perspective. So it actually saves them time as well at the end of the day. So my role at after is senior systemic advocate, so very much getting in the face of politicians and ministers and trying to lobby them to make change, to improve outcomes for people with disability in Australia.
29:07S3
And I read in various articles that you were a major player in the campaign to have audio described programs broadcast on public television in Australia. When did you realize that this was an issue that needed to be discussed or brought to the attention of politicians?
29:22S6
It would have been when I first started working for Blind Citizens Australia, I really hadn't heard of audio description. I didn't know what it was until I became involved with BCA. And BCA had been lobbying around audio description for many, many years already. So I really saw this as a huge level of injustice for people who are blind or visually impaired, because in comparison, people who are deaf or hearing impaired, they've had access to captions as mandated under law for a couple of decades now. But we still miss out. So I was really driven to try and improve that for people who are blind or visually impaired, because it just didn't seem fair to me.
29:56S3
You say you took your complaints to the UN. From what I understand, that was quite a lengthy process. So where did you start and how did you go about this?
30:04S6
Yeah. So in order to lodge a complaint with the United Nations, you need to have first exhausted all domestic remedies. So that means whatever remedies exist in Australia for you to pursue a complaint of that nature. So I'd already been through the Australian Human Rights Commission's process. I'd lodged a complaint under the Disability Discrimination Act, and that wasn't resolved through conciliation. That process did take, I think, probably about 18 months, though, in itself. And once that was all done and dusted, I was pretty confident that there was nowhere else to go with this in Australia, because even when I worked at Blind Citizens Australia, with which lodged so many disability discrimination complaints about this issue, and it just wasn't getting anywhere.
So I looked at the United Nations mechanism. So under the convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, there is an avenue to lodge a complaint with a committee of international experts called the Committee on the Rights of Persons with disabilities. If you feel that your rights under the convention have been breached, it's a very technical and legalistic process and quite frankly, a little over my head. So I didn't do that alone. I had representation from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, who are based in Sydney.
31:11S3
That's amazing. And how long did the process take you from exhausting all of the the options here in Australia to going to the UN?
31:19S6
It was about seven years from start to finish, from when I first lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission to when I got an actual outcome from the United Nations Committee. That was about seven years.
31:30S3
What would you say to anyone that's trying to get into advocacy, whether it be advocating for themselves or in a professional capacity? Do you have any advice for them?
31:39S6
Well, all of my jobs, to be honest, have come about through volunteering, so I. Really strongly believe in volunteering. If you can get it. Get your foot in the door doing that. Make yourself indispensable. Show that you're committed. Show that you're passionate and you never know what will come from that. So just surround yourself by the right people.
31:56S3
Thank you for chatting with us today, Lauren.
31:58S6
Thanks so much, Lizzy. It's been a pleasure.
32:07S3
And that's a wrap for this week's show. We hope that you've enjoyed hearing from our guests just as much as we have.
32:14S4
A big thank you to Frank, Sonja, and Lauren for joining us on the show, and a big thank you to you out there for listening on next week's show.
32:23S3
Have you ever wondered about the people that sell The Big Issue? Chris was 17 and homeless with nowhere to go. We hear his story, but between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have any experience with any of the issues covered in this week's episode of Studio One, or whether you think there's something we should be talking about. You never know. Your story or insight may help somebody who's dealing with something similar.
32:48S4
You can email us at Studio One at Vision Australia. Org. That's studio1@visionaustralia.org
32:55S3
Or you can drop us a note on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash VA Radio Networks, just like our friend Julie did.
33:04S4
Yes, Julie dropped us a line after the jury duty episode last week, and this is what she said. I thoroughly enjoyed your program last night on jury duty. I was called up for jury duty in August 2017, and as I am a real news buff, especially for the courts and crime stories, I had to try and hold myself from watching the news for a month. I am totally blind and was very impressed with the accommodations that the sheriffs made. Although two of the cases that I was on I couldn't participate in. Unfortunately, the case I could participate in and sit in the court, I was challenged. The jury manager I found was wonderful in trying to accommodate me in the best way that he could.
33:47S3
Well, thank you, Julie, for dropping us that comment and we hope that you will tune in next week. Thanks, Heidi, for joining me on this special episode of Studio 1.
33:57S4
Thanks, Lizzie. Thanks for having me. I've had an absolute ball.
34:01S1
Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.
