The Sunshine Coast community is known for its generosity and kind-heartedness. Now the community is being invited to go one step further and make a difference to the lives of residents living with a disability.
Sunshine Coast Council has prepared the Draft Inclusion Action Plan for People with Disability 2024-2028 to help create a region where those of all abilities have equitable opportunities to live, work, visit and play. Community Portfolio Councillor David Law says one-in-six Australians have a disability and up to 90 per cent of disabilities are invisible.
“This highlights the importance of this plan and why we want the Sunshine Coast to be a region where people of all abilities have equitable opportunities by 2028,” Cr Law says.
“This plan has been drafted through extensive, targeted consultation with people with lived experience of disability and their carers, disability support workers and the Inclusion Action Plan Reference Group.
“The draft action plan has identified four guiding principles and commitments, including promoting and protecting human rights, increasing disability awareness, valuing lived experience and improving access, and sets out five key priority areas for action.”
Feedback can be provided at haveyoursay.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au before July 31. Drop-in sessions are at Kawana Library at 2pm on July 14, Nambour Library at 3.30pm on July 17 and Coolum Library at 10am on July 19.
Did you know?
- 719 out of 730 (98 per cent) of bus stops on the Coast are now Disability Discrimination Act 1992 compliant.
- 11,203 passengers have travelled a total of 59,924 kilometres using the Council Link service.
- Pool hoists are now available at all nine aquatic centres. Pool wheelchairs will be available at all those centres soon.
- All abilities exercise classes are included as part of the Healthy Sunshine Coast program.
- Mobility mapping is helping to inform on accessibility across multiple areas of the region.
NEW HOIST HELPS SAILORS RACE TOWARDS GLORY
A Sunshine Coast team of four sailors competing in the 2023 Hansa 303 Queensland Championship is prepped and ready, thanks to a new and specially designed hoist facility at Parrearra.
The hoist facility has been installed on the pontoon at Double Bay to help the Coast’s disabled racing sailors get on and off their specialist boats. Mark Anderson’s determination to train with the racing sailors was the catalyst for the project.
Anderson was among a recent training group – along with Saltwater Veterans sailors Sharon Dalton, Tiarne Burkett, Sonja Macfarlane and Hayden Southwell – using the facility for the first time. Four of them will compete in the September championship on the Gold Coast. The sailors have been chosen from Sailability Sunshine Coast’s participation program on Mooloolah River every Tuesday and Friday.
Southwell will be looking to better his and Damien Hallam’s two-person class bronze medal result from the 2021 Special Olympics Queensland Championship.
“All of them will do reasonably well at the championship,” Sailability Sunshine Coast president Alan Winter says. “Sonja is the defending champion from the last state championship, so with a good sailing partner she should do very well.”
