LivedX 3: Allycia Staples ‘Kindness Matters’ (Auslan)

- ♪ bright upbeat music ♪ For those of you that don't know, I have a rare genetic condition on the 18 chromosome. It means that one, there's a tiny bit missing. So, that's how different I am from most babies and most kids So, that tiny little bit of me that's inside it hasn't held me back all this time, and I just want people to know that this is what I am, I'm who I am and I can't change that. I had a heart failure and a congenital heart disease. It was quite scary at first, and then I thought oh my god, what am I doing here? It doesn't affect me, but sometimes I have seizures. I started y'know getting fuzzy, and I was like " Oh no, what's going on?" And then as soon as my eyes started to open, there were people like y'know all over me, checking if I was okay. And I thought to myself, why is there so many people around me? And my granddad was saying, "well, you had a seizure," and I'm like, "Did I?" And I was like, "Oh, I didn't feel anything, but I felt something was gonna happen. It's scary when you feel it at first, but then you have to try and prepare before you might have the seizure. So yeah. Primary school was fun. I got to graduate with my class in 2008. And graduating from the mainstream school was... It made me feel like I was one of them, like a person without a condition, because that's what I wanna feel like. I wanna feel like a normal person, and it's difficult not knowing about it, but then when you know it, you move on with it. When I graduated in primary school, I've always wanted to go to Brisbane State High, and it's because my sister went there. The sad thing about that was that there was no special education in Brisbane State High. So, that's when we moved up here on the Sunny Coast to go to Maleny State High, 'cause that had a special education there. Maleny High School was the best school, because I got to go on camps like Emu Gully, and I also got to do carnivals, like swimming, athletics, cross country, and also do some fun things, like go to Bellingham Maze and Aussie world. And some of the coolest places like Stradbroke Island, we went there like in year 11. And, I think the reason my disability didn't hold me back 'cause I kept going, and I had so many opportunities in schools, I've been on camps and it's just been amazing experience, and that's never hold me back and I've never gave up. The teachers gave me a moral support y'know with the homework, and we did like fun things on computers, and we had our own computer. Maleny High School gave me a lot of support. So, when I graduated from high school, I'd always wanted to travel. The first time that I tried for a job was at Maleny library, and I gotta say, honestly, it was too quiet for me. And I guess the hardest thing for me was not being able to talk as loud as I could, 'cause that's what I am. I talk a lot all the time and I can't help it sometimes, it just comes out of my system. Mainstream and Me was a program to educate people about young people with disabilities. It was basically everything about job interviews, resumes, and the things to do to get into a job, and it was like the best experience that I had. So, Mainstream and Me went to job places to deliver the presentations of how to get a job. And our job was to try and convince the people that we wanna get a job, we wanna have a normal life, and that we can bring a lot to the workplace. So, I was doing a presentation up in Melbourne with the Mainstream and Me crew. And I did my presentation, did what I had to do, and then next minute, the CEO of BUSHkids gave me his business card. And I was like, " Oooh, lucky, lucky." So, I was on the money and I got head hunted. My job at BUSHkids is the resource assistant. My job is to do folders and rip 'em up! Make 'em done nicely and cut up a lot of stuff! It's a lot more fun and bubbly. And last year I went to my first Christmas party with them, and it was just the best experience with them, 'cause I met new friends. So my creative life was the performing arts, and my first passion for the arts was dancing. And, I actually first started when I was a teeny tiny little girl, and I had my auntie and my brother, my sister, my mum, and everyone help me y'know get my legs moving, and y'know get them running and dancing, y'know just getting them moving. When I dance I love to give a message to people about that type of awareness of when you meet someone with a disability, it's important not to say something behind there back, because they think that you're talking about them, and it's not right. So, Sunshine Troupe is a dance/theatre group for people with intellectual disabilities. And, we do theatre, we do dance, we do a lot of comedy and we do a lot of fun. We have about 10 people in our group so far. We started in 2010, I was one of the originals. Well, we've been doing a lot about community, and a lot about negative words and positive words. Like we give positive messages, we don't give negative, but we start with the negative, and then we come out with a positive message saying, "We want you to understand that people with disabilities is a normal thing." We did a little short film called "Luminosity" and I gotta tell you it was a big hit at the Sunshine Coast Theatre Festival, because when we showed it at the opening night, everyone loved it, including our fellow performances. It was quite interesting to see a lot of people's faces go, "Ooh, ah." We worked with fabulous people like Lawrence Talia who was a creative director and a very lovely French woman. And it was just amazing to do that kind of short film, y'know, being in the dark and then seeing light again, it was just amazing. So, I went to Sydney to do a residency with Catalyst for two years. And I got to do a workshop with an Aboriginal woman named Genoa Gela, and she is one of the most inspiring women ever, 'cause she is a strong advocate for Aboriginal people. I went to Scotland and Glasgow to do a residency with Caroline Bowditch, and it was really fun to get a lot of thoughts, and a lot of tips from her, because she's a choreographer theatre person like myself. Cause she's still a person y'know who makes art. The US I went with my mum and we went to New York, and then we went to Boston, and we went to a Chromosome meeting conference, and it was one of the best conferences I've ever been, 'cause I saw a lot of my friends when I used to be very little, and I haven't met them fully before. So, to actually meet them for the first time, it was so good. I was in New Caledonia with my colleague Florence and my mum. What I was doing in New Caledonia, I was going to kind of like a mini conference kind of thing. And it was actually my first time as a performer going to another country, so I had a lovely time there. But the worst thing about that was like the food was great, but the food was all chicken, and I gotta say, it was the most boring thing ever. I loved the trip, but no more chicken. Well, I work with my own disability self-advocacy group called Loud and Clear, and it's a Queensland based self-advocacy group, and there is a ton of fabulous people with disabilities there. And I am a representative of the 'Our Voice' which is a committee for all the states, so it's basically a voice to the government. I'm part of another arts group called 'Aha Ensemble'. And it's a pretty good mixture of people with disabilities and with no disabilities. And we're working with a collaboration with Phluxus, which is a dance group. It's a mainstream group that we love. I'm also doing another collaboration with Sylph Circus, which is with the Sunshine troupe. And basically what we're doing is we've been doing things of the circus, like human pyramids, and y'know back to back things, and acrobat things. And with the Sunshine Troupe and Sylph Circus, we put them together and we make a show. You'd be quite surprised at how good mainstream and people with disabilities can work together. When we work with mainstream people, we work very closely together, so we're kind of like family. My hopes and dreams for the future is to go and see celebrities and make a YouTube channel for myself, because I want people to know the real me. What I'm trying to say is I'm wanting to have like a wider community with y'know a lot more support. And, it's important because we had a lot of struggles this year it's gonna be hard, but if we keep working together, it's gonna be a great end of 2020, whether or not it's still COVID-19. I got the determination, but the community better be open, because I'm just sick and tired of hearing the same old story every time. Well, I wanna see more people on Netflix that has young people with disabilities like me, because all we're seen is y'know, Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Luke Hamill. Where's the cool people? Mitchell Runcie, myself. I mean, come on. I wonder if any of you have a star that either has an intellectual disability or is in a wheelchair, you can't think of one, can you? Mm-hmm. Well, I can tell you one person or a couple of people, Dylan Alcott tennis player, Caroline Bowditch she's in a wheelchair. We have Madeline Stuart, she's a person with a disability. She went from sitting watching the catwalk to being on the catwalk. And then you got someone like the gymnast with down syndrome, she went on and did other things. They've had the love and the support and the commitment, and the community that gave them that one chance. And before I go, there are three tips that I wanna leave you with, never give up on your dreams, that's the most important thing. Have family, friends, supports, your colleagues, have them there around you. Be open with the community, talk to your friends, talk to people even strangers, just have a piece of kindness in your heart, because kindness always matters. ♪ gentle music ♪