This month we welcome a very special Guest Speaker to talk about not letting disability prevent you from making a difference in the world
Hello everyone, I would like to introduce myself, my name is Julie Fernandez and I have brittle bone disease. I have broken my bones over 100 times now and have had around 70 operations. I use a lightweight manual very funky purple wheelchair. As you can imagine I have to be careful but my friends and family will tell you I tend to go a bit wild and try and live my life to the fullest. It has been known for me to go rock climbing and abseiling and even back-packing around Thailand with my brother and his girlfriend. I learnt from a young age that life is what you make it, it’s no good sitting at home moaning and groaning about how difficult it can be and make lots of excuses or you can just take life by the horns and go for it. Many people have told me that I couldn’t and shouldn’t and from a young age I decided to ignore them. Of course, not when it comes to the important things like drug and alcohol abuse or getting into a car with a stranger for example, but when someone tells me that because I’m a disabled person I shouldn’t do things, I think pffff!
Me with the cast of 'The Office'                                        A scene from 'The Office'
I grew up within a family who travelled a lot and really enjoyed the experience of going to new countries and meeting new people. If any of you get the opportunity to go abroad, go for it, it really is so much fun and you will learn so much from it, even as much as you would learn from going to school. It’s fun trying to communicate with people when you don’t speak the same language, it’s all hands and feet but somehow you manage. When I was 12 years old my parents sent me to an amazing boarding school in Hampshire for disabled kids which was brilliant. I had so much fun and learnt how to be independent and not to use my disability as an excuse not to get on with life. A few months before my A level exams my school received a call from the Casting Department at the BBC who were looking for a young girl in a wheelchair to play the character Vanessa Lockhead in a new soap opera called Eldorado. As I had always enjoyed drama and was having no joy getting into university because so many of them didn’t have access to many of their buildings for disabled students I decided to go for the audition. You can imagine my surprise when the producers of the show offered me the job, if I could have jumped up and down for joy I would have, so I just got my mum to do it instead.
My parents told me that they would only let me do it if I carried on taking my A level exams so one week before my 18th birthday, a month before my first exam I went to live in Spain as Eldorado was all about families living in a village on the Costa Del Sol. Wow, there I was living in my own house, no parents and no staff telling me what to do. I intended to have some fun and of course we all worked really hard on set every day. I did do my A levels and thankfully passed them both although only by the skin of my teeth. That was all fourteen years ago now and so much has happened since then, I am still working in television which is exciting, but also very hard as so many people who make television shows don’t want disabled people in them unless the character is portrayed because of their disability. People seem to think that we are not attractive, that people don’t want to see us on their television screens. They think that we won’t be able to fulfil all our duties or work long hours, that it will cost too much to adapt the building for our needs. I think that they are wrong as do many of my disabled friends who work really hard to prove that they like everybody else, we are capable too. I would be interested to know what you think; would you be offended if you saw a disabled landlady in Coronation Street or a disabled receptionist in Casualty for example? What do you think about disabled people having equal rights? Do you know someone who is disabled who has been discriminated against? How does that make you feel? If you have a disability or you know somebody with a disability who needs to find out information ranging from benefits available, equipment, accessible holidays and just about anything you can think of then give The Disability Foundation a call on 0208 954 7373. It’s a great charity that I set up 10 years ago to help disabled people and their families. We are very lucky because we have one of the largest disability databases in the country which allows us to help people answer all the questions that they have and we also have lots of complementary therapies at reduced rates too. They are a really friendly bunch, so don’t hesitate to give them a call. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope that in some small way it helps you to feel a bit more confident and to realise that you have the right and the ability to do anything that you want in life as long as you don’t harm others. I wish you all lots of luck and happiness and don’t forget, GO FOR IT!!!
To find out more, check out the following sites: www.juliefernandez.com
www.tdf.org.uk