I’ve been a writer for Disability Horizons for almost 7 years now. A majority of my work consists of writing up articles from home. However, this year my role is becoming bigger and better.
Firstly, on Wednesday 27th February, I will be taking part in my first reporting role for Disability Horizons. I’m heading to the launch of the Team BRIT Racing Academy for disabled drivers at Dunsfold Park, Surrey. The event will be joined by Nicolas Hamilton, brother of Lewis Hamilton, who has cerebral palsy and became the first disabled driver to race in the British Touring Car Championship. I will be attending as part of the press and be given the opportunity to interview Nicolas plus other Team BRIT drivers. I admit I do not know much about motorracing but it will be a great experience, plus give me a chance to do some face-to-face interviews rather than sit behind a screen. Follow my Twitter feed for updates throughout the day.
At the end of March, I will be attending Naidex for the first time; an event that showcases products, services and education, which aims to innovate the future of independence for disabled people. It will include over 200 different companies and businesses including charities, product and technology firms, care facilities, accessible holiday firms plus media and entertainment services.
There will also be guest speakers including actor Warwick Davis, Michael Vermeersch from Microsoft, BBC’s Paul Beper and, of course, Disability Horizons’ co-founder, Martyn Sibley. I will be assisting on the Disability Horizons stall and finally get to meet some of the team in person. In addition, I’m also hoping to meet with the fellow champions at AccessAble. Naidex will be held at the NEC Arena, Birmingham on Tuesday 26th & Wednesday 27th March 2019. Visit the Naidex website to find out more and book your free tickets.
In terms of my writing projects for this year, I’m currently focusing on securing and conducting some original interviews with some well-known disabled people.
Following the success of my interviews with BBC weather presenter Lucy Martin last year, which ranked top search result on Google, we are eager to continue this success by doing interviews with people who are currently most searched online.
This is the list of people I am aiming to approach within the next month:
- Ade Adepitan
- Sophie Morgan
- Nikki Fox
- Liz Carr
- RJ Mitte
- Warwick Davis
- Cerrie Burnell
- Jules Robertson
Lastly, I’ve had the opportunity to get involved in some paid freelance writing. Since August 2018, I have been lucky enough to write four articles for external clients of Disability Horizons. This basically means that a disability-related company will contact our magazine asking for writers to write up an article promoting their services; either to be published on their own website or to be published on our website. So far I’ve written 2 pieces for iansyst, one for Lifton and one for Nimbus Disability. Some articles I am still waiting to see published. In return for this work, Disability Horizons pay me between £30 – £50 per article – a nice way to earn some extra cash!
UPDATE: Also, literally today, I have been invited to attend the Attitude is Everything awards in London, which celebrates the amazing work music venues do to create accessibility for deaf and disabled music fans.
So as you can see, my workload at Disability Horizons has increased a lot in the past year which I am absolutely loving. I’m looking forward to my adventures ahead and being able to conduct more interviews with some incredible, inspirational people.
Wow, that’s awesome. I look forward to reading your posts, especially about the motor racing event as I’m a huge motorsport fan.