Project Advisory Group

Hendrix (they/he)

Project Advisory Group Member

Hendrix is disabled, an artist, activist and proud Biripi-Dunghutti person. They and their work (in all its forms) aims to defy the imposed colonial boundaries, push toward disability justice, abolition, and share a staunch intersectional perspective.

Willow (she/her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Willow is a disabled and neurodivergent person working in the disability advocacy space. She has a degree in education and arts, and hopes to study training and assessment and speech pathology in the near future.

Through her own lived and professional experience, Willow is aware of how challenging it can be to speak up for yourself, especially within a complex system such as the NDIS. She hopes to contribute to clarifying these processes and the rights of disabled young people through this project.

Victoria (she/ her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Victoria is a 23 year old psychology student living on Kaurna land in Adelaide, South Australia.
Victoria enjoys her volunteer work with children and young people within a wide range of settings.

She is passionate about reducing stigma and creating change within the mental health and disability support system. She believes that everyone deserves to feel safe and respected when receiving care and has the right to speak up and be heard when something doesn’t feel right.

Patrick (he/him)

Project Advisory Group Member

Patrick is a disabled young person who is passionate about using his lived experience to make a meaningful difference. Patrick has lived with a disability his entire life and comes from a family deeply intrenched within the disability community. He is a university student from Melbourne studying Commerce.

Patrick is driven to make a more accessible and inclusive system for all young people with a disability. He believes that advocacy is the key to systemic change and overcoming personal challenges. Patrick is committed to empowering young people and their support network to advocate for themselves in order to break down barriers, achieve their goals and live their best life.

Anna (she/her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Anna (she/her) is a young Vietnamese-Australian female, who also lives with a visual impairment. She is a pre-medical student, with a great aspiration of becoming a pediatric doctor in future.

Anna is deeply passionate about disability rights and freedom, diversity pride and disability advocacy. She also has a professional interest in Eating Disorder research/intervention, as well as congenital cardiac diseases within both premature and full-term children.

In her spare time, Anna is also a classically-trained singer/songwriter and pianist, and thoroughly enjoys recording and performing her music. She also loves to practice Yoga, cook, craft and spend quality time with family and friends. Anna strongly believes that ‘we are all able; just able in different ways.’

Maya (she/they)

Project Advisory Group Member

My name is Maya, and I am in high school currently, I am Deaf and Auslan is my first and primary language. I enjoy studying history, especially art history, and I hope to have a career in that field when I continue my studies after high school. I have a big passion in photography and cinematography and it is one of my many hobbies.

Eleanor (she/her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Eleanor is a University student passionate about disability pride, accessibility, and youth mentorship. Dedicated to advocating for inclusivity, she volunteers as a youth mentor for kids with her disability in her spare time. With aspirations to use her law degree to work in disability advocacy and discrimination law, Eleanor is committed to creating a more inclusive environment for all.

Thali (she/her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Hi, my name is Thali. I’m 14 years old and I am autistic and have ADHD. I love people knowing about my autism, not necessarily for me but for other autistic people. I love bringing awareness to things like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and lots of other disabilities, or as I like to call them “different abilities.”

I applied to work at YDAS because I saw it as a wonderful way to do the things I love (bring awareness to the things I find important) and meet more people like me. Yes I am the youngest here but I refuse to let that stop me, there will always be a youngest but no one said that the youngest can’t be the strongest. So, I am here to prove that young people and autistic people can and will make a change.

Elina

Project Advisory Group Member

Elina is an artist, youth co designer and health consumer representative. Using her lived expeience of multi complex illness/disbaility, hearing and vision loss. With a passion for using creativity to break down information in a way that meets people where they are at, rather than the other way around. Whilst trying to break the cycle of trauma in chronic illness care.

Georgia (she/her)

Project Advisory Group Member

Georgia is a 25-year old disabled woman who is passionate about helping other young disabled people to achieve their life goals. Her personal interests include bioinformatics and IT, she is hoping to pursue a career in IT or cyber.

Georgia is a recent graduate from a Bachelor of Science and understands the difficulty of advocating for herself and her rights. She wants to show other young people how to build confidence in using their voice and make them feel heard and seen. She aims to ensure that everyone knows their challenges especially when they are health related, are important and valid.