The premier production of a brand-new professional, all-wheelchair-user dance company, is to tour three venues across the Midlands. Propel Dance will tour its reimagined version of the fairy tale The Snow Queen in April.Led by an all-female leadership team, the company was instigated and founded by Helen Mason, a Birmingham-based Dance Artist with a track record of making dance for and with disabled people for over twenty years.https://www.livingwithdisability.org/post/uk-s-first-all-wheelchair-professional-dance-company-announces-tour
Mattel, the makers of Barbie, has introduced its first-ever doll with scoliosis.The toy company has launched its new Chelsea doll, who is Barbie’s little sister, with a curved spine and a removable back brace.Citing the “power of representation”, the brand aims to normalise the equipment and encourage children to celebrate inclusion with its latest addition to the Barbie family.Mattel worked closely with Dr Luke Macyszyn, a board-certified neurosurgeon and specialist in children’s complex spinal disorders, in order to develop the doll.https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/barbie-scoliosis-doll-chelsea-b2272781.html
Diagnosed with autism and global development delay in his early years, Jason Arday was unable to speak until he was 11 years old and could not read or write until he was 18. Now aged 37, he is about to become the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship at the University of Cambridge.https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64717079.amp
Artist Alice Herring has created a stunning Guide Dogs themed window at the café she co-owns in Warwickshire.Alice, who will be running in this year’s London Marathon for the charity, hopes the window mural will help to reach her £4,000 target, as well as raise awareness of the charity’s fostering and puppy-raising volunteering roles.https://www.livingwithdisability.org/post/cafe-owner-paints-window-mural-in-aid-of-guide-dogs
