#ReturnRusselsLeg🦿🐴
Plus: How sport doesn't have to be a 'normal person' thing 🏑
Kia ora rā! 🌪️
In this week’s delicious edition:
Whangaroa’s amputee icon wants his leg back 🧲
Should we be problematising ADHD traits? Plus, new accessibility policy for Rotorua ♿️
Athlete Sarah Clarke reclaims love for sports and works towards Oceania Para Championships 🏅
CLOSING SOON: apply for spoken word poetry workshops now 💌
The horse hoof. The t-shirt. The look of someone pissed off about their stolen prosthetic limb. Russel Blank wants his prosthetic limb back as he suspects someone stole it in the mail when it was being couriered home from repairs in Auckland.
RNZ talked to Blank about it: "It really is kind of inconvenient. It would be good if you could get a bit guilty and leave it somewhere where someone can find it. It'd be pretty good to have it back." 💅
Although his homebuilt prosthesis isn’t ideal for his mobility and he’s still learning to trust it, can we take a moment to appreciate the craft? Blank said he “got a little creative with some spare parts I had lying around.” I mean who has a hoof lying around?!
I want to know if anyone else as made some neat makeshift aids? Being disabled doesn’t necessarily mean we stop going from point A to point B; we just find our own crafty way to do it.
Share your hacks, tricks and creations in the replies below. Let’s share the joy of disabled creativity with each other 🪩
🧠 Jo Randerson writes on the Spinoff about getting diagnosed with ADHD in their 40s which has helped clarify whether some of their traits are part of their personality or related to ADHD. The writer and theatre maker, whose show Speed is Emotional is showing at Q Theatre, challenges the problematisation of some traits:
Many Western words place ADHD as a “problem” or a difficulty. One ADHD trait is “Ordination Failure”, which means the inability to progress in a linear fashion from beginning to middle to end. That’s quite a negative framing. I enjoy my unusual ordering of events, and my dislike of binary categories. I mean, cryptic non-linear sequencing is LITERALLY the definition of poetry. Is it a failure to do things differently? Or a necessary response to a world which is in essential tremor?
In an interview with RNZ, Randerson talks about the intersection between creative arts and neurodivergence. Randerson says that after trying lots of medications, “the biggest refuge I found was the world of art and theatre because you can be really big in theatre and you can wave your arms around and move and that’s actually seen as a gift whereas, try and work in an office job and everyone’s like ‘what’s wrong with you?’”
🗺️ Last Wednesday, Rotorua Lakes Council adopted a new accessibility policy (from page 27 of this document) developed with input from the local disability community which will lead to stricter building rules, LDR reports. Reverend Timothy Lee was the chairman of the Rotorua CSS Disability Action Access Group committee.
Lee said while many publicly accessible buildings and facilities may be claimed to be accessible, experience in them proved otherwise.
He hoped a “robust” bylaw could be developed in the future with stringent accountabilities requiring accessibility in those buildings and facilities, and consultation with people with lived experience.
🛣️ Dave is fighting ACC to keep his care team and his dog, Zeus. After an ACC review, Dave’s staff travel rates and flat rates were cut in December last year. For the last three years, one of Dave’s carer has been driving 70km to Dave in Kawerau, a cost that has been covered by ACC until the December review. But TVNZ reports that changes to his policy don’t make sense for Dave’s needs and the math ain’t mathing.
🙅♂️ The Labour Party has terminated the membership of its Kirk Disability Sector chairperson, Nick Stoneman, after alleged mistreatment and threats to a woman he was working for, Stuff NZ reports.
🏓 A year ago, Sarah Clarke tried table tennis at the Halberg Games on a whim and is now training five times a week with a coach and aiming for selection for the Oceania Para Championships in September 2026. Olivia Shivas asked Clarke how Parasport helped her reclaim a passion for sport:
At primary and intermediate school, she says she felt pressure to keep up with mainstream sport. “All my friends did sports and I was like, ‘Okay, sport is a normal person thing. If I wanna fit in with everyone, I have to do sport’.”
“I don't feel like you should be feeling those pressures that young,” she says. “I couldn't really abide with those pressures because my body wasn't at the position where it could.”
But something shifted at high school when she was introduced to Parasport at 15 years old. “I think that's when it turned from something I had to do to something I wanted to do, which is kind of why I chose to pursue it outside school and in the gym.”
🗣️ Have you always wanted to creatively express your stories, experiences and dreams as a disabled and/or Deaf person in Aotearoa? Now’s your chance! There is still time to submit an application to our Spoken Word Poetry Workshop with Action Education. If you have any pātai, reach out to events@thedlist.co.nz. Applications close next Friday 25 April.
🥄 The D*List is catching a big snooze for a week to recharge on our spoons. We’ll brb on 2 May for more of the latest on disability culture!
Kia noho haumaru! 🌧️ 🧦
Eda 🛌
