Australian Queen’s Birthday Honours recipient Suzi said that revelation 19 years ago prompted her to want to share the experience with others.

She received this great honour for service to people with a disability, particularly through the Wheelies with Wings

program,and to the community. In 2003 she achieved her dream and founded Wheelies with Wings which has now helped 48 people with disabilities learn to fly in Australia.

In the Australian honours system appointments to the Order of Australia confer recognition for outstanding achievement and service. The Medal of the Order of Australia is awarded for service worthy of particular recognition. Recipients of the Order of Australia are from many fields of endeavour and all walks of life.

read the full article about her award in The Herald, Australia

Gautam Lewis of FITA collaborated with one of our Ambassadors Carol Naughton to produce the Peace of Art show in London.

Peace of Art Gig (Peace of Art ) took place at the University of London Union (ULU) on Tuesday 4 November 2008. That day had been chosen as it was the centenary of the birth of Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, who launched the WMDAP (Weapons Of Mass Destruction Awareness Program) spent most of his life working for a world without war and nuclear weapons.

In conjunction with the Pugwash Conferences, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for their efforts towards nuclear disarmament. November the 4th 2008 was also the US elections – start of a new culture of peace – and thankfully a new President.

Damon Albarn of Blur talked about his literary influences before presenting the Written Word award and Rusty Bradshaw of Razorlight gave out the award to the winners of the music category. They will be performing at this years Glastonbury Festival, at the Blazing Saddles stage, along with The Futureheads. So it was great to see Geoff Martin, the Leftfield stage organiser, present the special invite to the winners, from Canons High School in Edgeware for their song “Walk Away”.

Around 130 young people, along with teachers, parents, friends and invited guests gathered at ‘The Venue’ in the University of London for the Peace of Art Awards Ceremony.

These are the rough timings for Get up Stand up – which is part of the WMD awareness programme at Blazing Saddles stage, Glastonbury 2009, on June 27th.

4.35 Ivan Brackenbury
4.55 Ed Byrne
5.15 The Futureheads
5.45 Music contest winners from Peace of Art ( Canons High School )
6.00 Tony Benn MP
6.10 Marcus Brigstocke

Come Clean Website

In 1997 Suzi received the “Nancy Bird Award for, the most significant contribution to aviation by a woman of Australasia”. [/lang_en][lang_en]In 1998 she received a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship. This was awarded to enable her to:

1. Look at flying for the physically disabled in the USA and UK.
2. Look at, compare and asses how America and the UK asses people with physical disabilities with respect to flying. Particularly as they’re respective attitudes with respect to who can fly tends to be at opposite extremes.
3. Look at a Flying Scholarship programme in the UK in memory of Sir Douglas Bader. Suzi was in the process of trying to set a similar programme in Australia.

As a result of the success of the “Vision Air” hand control at that point of time, her Churchill Fellowship inadvertently had significant focus around the hand control.

Prior to departing for America, she was invited by the Surgeon General of the USAF to present a paper on flying and teaching with a disability. The emphasis of the talk was to be on the medical, physical aspect of an individual with respect to flying. She was also asked to present this paper to the Civil Aero medical Institute of America.

Her Churchill Fellowship was for three months. She did the entire travelling etc on her own in a wheelchair.

The “Vision Air” hand control is to date, being used in America, Canada, France, the UK, and South Africa.

During the early nineties Suzi developed acute, chronic neurological pain that resulted in her attending a Melbourne pain management clinic. They taught her to meditate, which is what has allowed her to fulfil her dreams of the last ten plus years. The impact the pain management clinic had on Suzi’s life was so great that she wanted to give back to the clinic. So, for the last nine years she has been running one of the sessions of each course that the clinic runs. She was invited to present the “key note” address at the 2000 International Pain Management Conference.

Her last years of working as a Dietitian were during the early nineties during which she specialised in “Early Intervention”. She gave one day a week to an Early Intervention Centre, specialising in infants and toddlers with special needs (mainly syndromes). Her role was two fold:

1. As a link between the hospital and the family. Trying to put the hospital requirements into a practical format, taking into consideration all the specific family’s situation eg financial status, cultural background, number of other children, educational background.
2. Working very closely with the other therapists and the family eg occupational therapist and speech therapist, to use food and the introduction of food (eg taste, texture, feel, and complexity) to help develop oral and language skills in the children.

While working in Early Intervention Suzi saw the need for a book that would be suitable for both parents and Early Intervention workers that went into the role that food plays in the development of fine and gross motor skills, tactile skills and oral skills – theses include tongue skills, swallowing and lip movement and even speech. This has now been published.

Currently, Suzi gives significant time to various community groups in her area. In particular she teaches art voluntarily to several groups of people with disabilities (this is art in the broadest context and disability in the broadest context ie it could be someone who is isolated). She is also involved with facilitating art within refugee groups. Art is known to cross all boarders and barriers and is often a critical form of expression. Particularly when then more conventional methods of communication and expression are not available. The art work was so successful that Suzi was asked to set up a group in the Epping area that was particularly aimed at encouraging people with a disability to get back into the community.

Her dream would be to try and develop community unity through art, this includes music. To this end she was one of the initiators of cultural harmony in the park three years ago, which this year had ~ 500 people from every possible cultural group within the City of Whittlesea at Hawkstowe Park (South Morang), and held exhibitions for the many people with disabilities that she taught. She is also involved in a number of local council committees eg Heritage, Plenty Valley Arts and Disability

Wheelies with Wings, the flying scholarship program Suzi set up in Australia is still operating, now in its 14th year. They run two courses per year. It is now based out of Temora with the whole Temora Township getting behind the program.[/lang_en]