Pilot: Should we even be doing this?

Get to know Kirsty and Colin, in this introductory episode of Enabled. 

Find out whether Colin is a fan of The Bachelor, the gelato controversy, and whether or not they should even be hosting this podcast. 

Listen in as Kirsty and Colin discuss the discomfort in the able-bodied community around disability - and why it's important to talk about it - and hear from surprise guest Dennis Owen (Mid North Coast Community College) about opportunities for Port Macquarie locals to learn about podcasting, and be involved with Enabled. 

Read the transcript here:

https://enabled.buzzsprout.com/2191914/12871439-pilot-should-we-even-be-doing-this

Transcripts available for each episode on the website: https://enabled.buzzsprout.com

Let us know what you think!

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Or email us on:
podcast@advocators.com.au

This episode is brought to you by Ability Advocators:
https://www.advocators.com.au/
(02)65 824 946

Transcript

Pilot: Should we even be doing this?

Colin: [00:00:00] I'm always ready.

Kirsty: All right. Here we go. Welcome everyone to the first ever episode of Enabled 

Colin: Enabled

Kirsty: The podcast where we talk about and normalize and celebrate disability and mental health. 

Colin: Is that what we're doing, Kirsty? 

Kirsty: That's what we're doing, Colin. How are you feeling? 

Colin: Fantastic.

Kirsty: It's finally here.

Colin: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. Yeah. 

Kirsty: You excited?

Colin: I'm excited. Yeah. Always excited. 

Kirsty: Awesome. I, so I have a slight confession to make. I have actually felt until quite recently, I've actually felt a bit hesitant about doing this podcast, or one particular thing about this podcast, which we're going to talk about later. It's going to kind of come up in a question that I have for you later.

Just heads up, but I'm super excited now. I think that there is, you know, so much to learn about disability and mental health. I think I need to learn a lot about it. And I think other people probably feel like they do too. I don't know. What do you think? 

Colin: I think you are exactly right. I think that it’s  a big field that a lot of people in the community just don't have any idea of [00:01:00] what's going on.

Kirsty: No.

Colin: Possibly even next to them with their neighbours or friends or acquaintances at work. 

Kirsty: Exactly. 

Colin: No idea. 

Kirsty: Exactly. Do you think. That the able-bodied community feels quite uncomfortable around disability? 

Colin: Yes. 

Yeah, definitely. You can see that now that I have started working in that field. You do pick up the fact that people are hesitant or don't know how to interact with people who are disabled.

Yeah. Yes, definitely. See it all the time. 

Kirsty: And you know, I think it's because, I mean, I feel like there's a couple of reasons why. I think part of it is we are not around, or not knowingly around disabled people as much as we should be. Something like one in five Australians have a disability. Are you seeing that when you go into the community?

I, I know some disability is invisible and obviously mental health is [00:02:00] more of an invisible thing, but I'm not seeing one in five disabled people out in the community. 

Colin: No, I would say that You don't normally, I, I would not see that, 

no. 

Kirsty: Yeah. And do you think that people. I think this is, I mean, a subject, a whole episode in itself, this whole cancel culture that we live in at the moment.

But do you think that's part of it? We don't know how to talk about it, and we don't want to offend people. We don't want to say the wrong thing. We don't want to get canceled, so we avoid talking about it. 

Colin: Two things. I think that we've lost the art of conversation. I just look at younger people and I shouldn't pick on younger people.

Kirsty: You're exposing your age.

Colin: but they sit and watch tv, play computer games on their phone, look at their Facebook, whatever, instead of actually one-on-one talking.

Kirsty: Totally. 

Colin: So they've lost that art of conversation. Yeah. And also, in a lot of ways [00:03:00] because of that, they don't know how to discuss important issues or topics.

They believe they can't have an opinion, even to a degree. Because if that's the wrong opinion, then they get cancelled. They get ignored or  ridiculed because they have a different point of view. In the past, you were taught to form your own opinions and you learnt things yourself, and you made up your opinion.

Certainly your parents, your peers, whoever, your teachers gave you information, but hopefully they didn't tell you how to think. Yeah. Whereas now a lot of people, and it's not just young people, a lot of people are told what to 

think. 

Kirsty: Mm-hmm. And if you, if you think something different, you are wrong. As opposed to just coming from a different perspective.

Yeah. Which is, you know, I feel like it's a dangerous slope. I feel like it's, it's the wrong way to be moving. But anyway, that can be a whole [00:04:00] podcast. What do you think? Should we do a podcast? 

Colin: That's a whole thing there. That's a whole topic by itself. Definitely. 

Kirsty: All right. Well, what I want to know, is there something, is there a topic or some people, like, what are you most excited to talk about on this podcast?

Colin: That's a good question. I think people who have a disability, who have achieved in their lives and how they've been able to get on in life. And be successful or, or whatever. I think that's really an exciting thing to look at. Yeah, 

Kirsty: for sure. Just the everyday sort of person. Yeah, I think it would be cool.

I have a wish list of people that I would like to talk to. And I don’t know if I should say it or not because maybe we can't get them, but I mean we've talked about Ryley Batt for example. Hopefully. Fingers crossed, Ryley, if you're listening we want to talk to you. He would be amazing to interview, I think.

I think you are especially excited about that because you are like the sport guy, whereas like, 

Colin: well yes, that's right.

Kirsty: [00:05:00] I also, I'm also super keen to interview, have you heard of Jerusha Mather? Nope. She is really cool. She is currently campaigning to be the first ever disabled Australian Bachelorette. Which I know you're going to be excited about because I know you're a big Bachelor fan.

Colin: No,

Kirsty: come on. This is a safe place. 

Colin: I have no idea what you're talking about.

Kirsty: You what? You know the Bachelor. 

Colin: No, I can't admit that I know what that is on air. 

Kirsty: How, dare you. Come on.

Colin: On like a podcast., 

Kirsty: Come on. Well, I'm, I'm a huge Bachelor fan, so, and also she's super cool. She's really, really cool. So I'm immediately invested in her story.

And Chloe Hayden is another one I'm really keen to interview. Again, these are like dream people. She is an autistic Australian actress and she was recently in the updated series of Heartbreak High that they had on Netflix, I want to say last year. It was really good. Like hard to watch occasionally, but really, really good.

And she, she has her own YouTube channel and I think she's just released a [00:06:00] book and she has some really cool things to say about disability language and identity and representation in media, which I think would be super cool to talk about. So, yeah. 

Colin: Sounds good.

Kirsty: That's my, that's what I'm, you know, just putting it out there to the universe.

That's what I would like to do. All right, so, this is just our introduction, right? So we don't have anyone to actually interview.

Colin: We could interview Dennis.

Kirsty: We could. We have the wonderful Dennis in the room with us. So, hi Dennis. Welcome unexpectedly to the show. Dennis is our podcasting guru and he is helping us to learn how to use the equipment, how to edit.

It's a pretty steep learning curve actually, I was thinking we'd just jump onto some microphones and press record and off we go. But, there's a lot more to it folks, and so thankfully we have Dennis here to show us the way. So Dennis, where are you from? 

Dennis: Well, I'm from Mid North Coast Community College, and I just want to start off by, congratulating you both on this initiative to provide a voice and witness [00:07:00] for people with disability and their carers, particularly in the area of mental health issues.

The project, I think, is a really great initiative, is one that is going to provide an opportunity to share their experiences, but also to learn from others about, you know, I often use the example of, as a parent of a few years ago, teenage kids that, you know, sometimes when you have teenagers, you sit there and think, oh, what have I done wrong?

I just don’t know how to handle all this. Until you have a discussion with another parent who's also got, right. 

Kirsty: Yeah.

Dennis: Teenagers. And you realize that you were just normal. 

Kirsty: Yes. It's so helpful, isn't it? Yeah. As a parent, I have felt intense relief speaking to other parents. Yeah. And we need that. We all need that community and support, don't we?

Dennis: There's been some wonderful research into the impact on brain activity and , the mental health [00:08:00] benefits of podcasting. When we're listening, in our brain, it elicits emotional response and feelings. And if I could just use a, a little example, if I ask you to describe your favourite dessert. 

Kirsty: Ooh.

Dennis: And I'm going to, so let's have a little practice and I, and I just want to be able to paint a picture with words.

So, I want you to tell me about your favourite dessert, but when you're telling me, I want you to describe texture, taste, the feeling of where it takes you. 

Kirsty: Yeah. Gosh. I'm, look okay. You'd have to go with, let's go local. Let's, I mean, I feel like we have probably the best gelato, I mean, for a, ah, Colin! Not a fan of gelato?

Don't say that. We love Blue Cow Gelato and any other gelato outlet. Do you not like it? 

Colin: No.

Kirsty: Do you like ice cream?

Colin: Yes.

Kirsty: What's the difference? [00:09:00] 

Colin: The  -  ice cream is ice cream, and  gelato is gelato. 

Kirsty: I mean, it's, they're basically the, I know that technically they're different, but it's like they're basically… It's a tomato, tomato kind of difference.

Like they're the same, just a fancier word. 

Colin: I like ice cream. 

Kirsty: Have you, when's the last time you had gelato?

Colin: I can't remember.

Kirsty: Have you given it a proper go?

Colin: I don't know.

Kirsty: Yeah. I, I feel like we are going to have to now, at some point, bring in ice cream and gelato, like a blind test. 

Colin: Blind test. 

Kirsty: And you tell me which one is ice cream and which one is gelato.

Colin: Depends on what flavour it is.

Kirsty: Okay. Well, we'll get the same flavour. They can be the same flavour. 

Colin: You can't get licorice gelato, 

Kirsty: Right. Are you saying you, are you saying you would not appreciate licorice gelato? Or 

Colin: no you can't get it.

Kirsty: you're saying it's unavailable? Can you get licorice ice cream? 

Colin: You certainly can.

Kirsty: I ... no longer want to do this podcast with you.

This is unacceptable. 

Colin: It's so nice.

Kirsty: No,

Colin: it's so nice. 

Kirsty: Oh. 

Dennis: I’m glad I arranged this subject!

Colin: Beautiful. 

Kirsty: [00:10:00] Well explain it to us, Colin. Off you go. Favourite dessert? 

Colin: It's just liquorice ice cream. It's just like having liquorice melt in your mouth and

Kirsty: literally gagging. 

Colin: It's cold and it's like, that old Darryl Lee soft liquorice.

That used to be the best. And it was just melting your mouth. But this is like cold melting in your mouth. It is. It is. It is. I, I can't 

describe it. 

Kirsty: I'm having a physical reaction to this, but I don't think it's what you were going for, Dennis. 

Colin: I was going to say wine trifle. 

Kirsty: Wine trifle. 

Colin: Because I remember mum making that.

Kirsty: Yes.

Colin: In the nice crystal bowl. 

Kirsty: Yes. 

Colin: And you put the sponge down and then you put the jam on it, and then you put some banana. We used to put bananas on it. 

Kirsty: Oh no, you've lost me, but continue.

Colin: Yeah. And then you put, she used to use sweet sherry.

Kirsty: Yeah. 

Colin: And or port. 

Kirsty: And as a kid you'd be eating it, being like, am I drunk?

Is it happening?

Colin: I know. Cover it with cream and yeah. Yep.

Kirsty: Yeah. Trifle, that's a winner, actually. Like the sponge. 

Colin: The sponge. You’ve got to use the right one. 

Kirsty: Yeah. Yeah. That's, [00:11:00] that's the trick, isn't it? 

Colin: And when I make it, it's good because I'm the only one that likes it. 

Kirsty: Perfect. There you go. 

Colin: I love it.

Kirsty: That's a classic, isn't it? The old Christmas trifle. Yeah. Well, Dennis, we should also, we've only vaguely sort of spoken about this, but Colin and I work for Ability Advocators. We're a disability service provider. And we have spoken to you about how we would like to, as well as sort of having this podcast, you know, we'd like there to be ways that clients or other people in the disability and mental health community can also involve themself in the whole podcasting process.

And we've spoken about possibly some training with you if we get enough interest. So, I mean, that's an exciting thing that could come out of this is equipping people, because you can do it - we've got some, you know, semi fancy equipment here, but you don't need it. You were just telling us that you were recording some poetry in a crowded room.

On what? On your phone or your computer? 

Dennis: Well, you can do it on your phone, but I just, even with a laptop and a microphone, and you're right. We're fortunate at the college we do [00:12:00] have funding available 

Dennis: to cover the cost of it under a program called Community Service Obligation Funding. And yes, it's available and I would strongly encourage it.

For carers, but also the participants so that their voice can be heard. 

Kirsty: Yeah. Yeah. So if that's something, if you're listening and you are keen to learn about that and figure out how you could maybe do your own podcast or record something that we can play on our podcast, hit us up. Podcast@advocators.com.au.

We are keen to talk to you and figure out what we can do. 

Colin: Do we have an address? 

Kirsty: Yeah. There's an email address, man. This is a legitimate enterprise, Colin. 

Colin: Gee.

Kirsty: So, alright, let's jump back in. So we were going to, the last thing that we were going to do, cause this is just our introductory episode.

The last thing we were going to do was we were going to ask each other three questions as sort of like a getting to know you exercise and, we have, this is going to be wild, Dennis. We have given each other no notice of what these questions are because we like [00:13:00] to live dangerously here at the Enabled podcast.

So do you want to go first? Should I go first? Should we paper rock, scissors? I'm going to go first. I'll ask. 

Colin: You can, you can go first. 

Kirsty: All right. I feel slightly bad about my questions. Okay, so I've got, I have three questions. I have an easy question, a hard question, and then just a fun question.

The hard question. 

Colin: You're going with the hard first?

Kirsty: No, no, no. Easy, then hard. The hard question - earlier in this episode, I spoke about how I was a bit hesitant for a while to do this podcast. 

Colin: Yep. 

Kirsty: The hard question is why. And I'm feeling very bad that I've not given you a heads up so that you could get your thoughts together.

Anyway, here we go. Let's just do it. So first question, easy question, Colin. Obviously a disability can be acquired, but at this point in your life, do you have a disability? 

Colin: No. 

Kirsty: All right. So here's my hard question, and this is what has been keeping me up at night until recently. I kind of feel like it's the elephant in the room, so I feel like we should talk about it. So this is a show, [00:14:00] we're just going to zero in on the disability part of it. So it's a show about disability. At this point in your life, you don't have a disability. Side note, neither do I. So my question is, don't you think that the fact that neither you nor I have a disability kind of disqualifies us from hosting a podcast about disability?

I should have given you a heads up. 

Colin: No. 

Kirsty: Tell me why. 

Colin: Well, does a doctor have to be sick, to be a doctor? 

And know what's going on through that. Does a, does a psychiatrist need to have a mental issue to be able to be a psychiatrist? 

Kirsty: So you're saying we have some experience in the industry or in the area, 

Colin: yeah.

Kirsty: And that on the basis of that we can host?

Colin: Yes.

Kirsty: Because here's, here's where I suppose I found it hard, and not that this was ever our plan, but it's not like we can create a podcast and suddenly sort of position ourselves as being like the [00:15:00] spokespeople or the mouthpiece for the disability community. 

Colin: No.

Kirsty: That, that's not in our lane, right?

That's not our right. We can't do that. But I suppose where I came to in the end of it, I really felt like, who are we to be talking about disability? Currently neither of us have a disability, what are we doing here? But I guess where I came to was two things, and the first one was - disability is a human rights issue.

Right? And we should all be talking about human rights issues. I was researching this a little bit, and you might be familiar with these statistics, Colin, I don't know, but I wasn't. The Australian Human Rights Commission far and away, overwhelmingly, the greatest complaint that they get is about disability discrimination.

It's something like triple the amount of complaints that they get for... gender or based on race, like three times the amount of complaints. It's the bulk of the work that they do, the Australian Human Rights Commission, is disability discrimination. [00:16:00] That kind of blows my, maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong circles, but people aren't talking about this.

I hear a lot of talk about sexism and racism and even ageism. But I'm not hearing anyone talking about ableism. Not, not really. Not a lot. But that seems to be the prevalent discrimination that is happening in Australia today. And I guess the other side of it for me was, I think what we're trying to do here is we want to provide a platform for people with disability to share their voice and their insight, and we want to promote that, but also we want to, I mean, I, as an able-bodied person, I want to know how to be an ally to the disability community.

And like we talked about earlier, we don't know how to do that. And if you don't know how to do something, you should ask. Right? 

Colin: I think that's the thing that would encapsulate it for me that okay, we can start this journey of a podcast, but if we can help some of our clients or potential people to come in and be involved 

Kirsty: Yeah.

Colin: And they [00:17:00] replace us. 

Kirsty: Right.

Colin: Fantastic. 

Kirsty: Yeah. 

Colin: And they can take over and they're the people that are living with it every day. 

Kirsty: Yeah.

Colin: If we can make that happen or allow that to grow 

Kirsty: Yeah.

Colin: And happen then. 

Fantastic. 

Kirsty: Awesome.

Colin: There you go. 

Kirsty: Good job. Well done. You handled that very well. All right, third question, last one, just for fun.

Not about the podcast, just generally in your life, in the whole world, I'm curious to know what is it that makes you the most nervous? 

Colin: What makes me nervous? I probably, probably do get nervous when I speak in front of groups of people. 

Kirsty: Public speaking. 

Colin: Public speaking. Yeah. I do get nervous. It doesn't worry me.

Kirsty: Interesting.

Colin: Like I can do public speaking, 

Kirsty: Right.

Colin: And I have. But I'd still get nervous. 

Kirsty: Yeah,

Colin: yeah.

Kirsty: Well, don't they say it's one of the top fears, like public speaking and death, people would rather be in the coffin than do doing the eulogy basically. It's supposed to be one of the main fears.

Colin: I don’t know about that, but, 

Kirsty: oh, [00:18:00] there you go.

Colin: Yeah, nuh.

Kirsty: Those are my questions. I'm done. 

Colin: That's your three questions.

Kirsty: You are done. Well done, sir, you handled those well. 

Colin: Okay. 

Kirsty: I'm getting nervous now. Go, hit me. 

Colin: All right. So I want to know… Now I know little bits of your history. 

Kirsty: Uh oh.

Colin: Okay. So I want to know what happened between finishing school. 

Kirsty: Yeah?

Colin: And when you went and became Miss "Travel the world" and go to all these really weird places where bears are wandering around at night. 

Kirsty: Yes.

Colin: That could have eaten you. 

Kirsty: Mm-hmm. 

Colin: And you could have fallen down the side of Machu Picchu and 

Kirsty: Oh yeah.

Colin: I want to know what happened between the end of school and when you did that?

Kirsty: Yeah. Cool. Okay. So I didn't do, I, I didn't do like one big around the world adventure, so the traveling was sort of interspersed between things that I was doing. So I finished school, I went straight to uni. Probably the thing that got me overseas initially was, so I studied law and somehow. [00:19:00] Somehow the, the Uni that I went to, they offered a whole unit that you could get credit for to go over to Germany and do this course about the European Union.

I can't even remember, but I just remember if you went on a trip to Germany for two weeks, you got credited a whole subject and I had one subject to go and I thought, let's do this.

Colin: So you did law? 

Kirsty: Yes. 

Colin: Yes

Kirsty: I did Law at Uni. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do it. But I did, yes. Yeah, so that sort of got me overseas the first time, and then I traveled a little bit before I got my job.

I went to Canada and Alaska, which is where the bears came in. And then I started working and I did like lots of, well, I did like two probably main trips to South and Central America while I was working. But that's all I've, you know, I wanted to learn Spanish. Which is why I went for so long. Like I spent almost six months in Mexico and some time in Peru and Ecuador, and Bolivia, because I wanted to learn Spanish.

Colin: Okay, 

why? Why law? 

Kirsty: [00:20:00] Oh, it's the classic -  I didn't know what to do and my parents felt that I was quite a good arguer. I pretty much never met an argument I didn't like, so my parents encouraged me to do it. I never intended to practice. I did end up practicing. So yeah, law because I didn't know what else to do and my parents suggested it would be a good avenue for me.

Colin: Okay. All right. 

Kirsty: Yes. 

There you go. Well, thanks. Thanks everybody for coming on the journey with us. Hopefully we've given you a bit of an idea of what the podcast is about and how we can all go on this journey of learning together. So, See you next time.

Colin: Vaya con Dios

Kirsty: Vaya con Dios, que bueno