London 2023

Earlier this year, one of our senior managers had the honour of being nominated to receive an Enablement Award through the Disability Update Team. The Awards have been established “to celebrate and reward excellence, innovation and exemplary achievements in the disability care sector” and were developed by the NDIS update news media platform (https://disabilityupdate.net/awards/ ).

Julie Saunderson has worked in the disability sector for almost 35 years, in a variety of roles from volunteer to owning her own support business. Her work has been published in journals and she has been invited to and has presented at national and international conferences over the years. After being diagnosed with her own disability 12 years ago, Julie’s work has taken a different perspective as she has strived to ensure that the community recognises the genuine value every person contributes to making that community whole. Julie has challenged herself, her colleagues, and the sector, to operate efficiently and effectively while keeping the needs of the Participant and their family paramount to decision making and practice delivery.

In June 2023, Julie travelled to Sydney where she was named the Most Outstanding NDIS Business Development Executive in Australia in 2023. As Julie noted in her acceptance speech, her honour was in purely being nominated, to have someone (or ones) take the time to put into words the value of her work, was truly overwhelming.

During the presentation, nominees were advised that the winners may be further nominated for the Global Awards with nominations from the USA, Canada, Central America, UK, Ireland, Europe, Middle East, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China and India. The winners of the Global Awards will be announced in London at an Awards Dinner on November 9, 2023.

Julie has been asked to confirm her travel arrangements as she has been shortlisted to just a few candidates for the award in her discipline. In the event Julie is announced the winner, she must be in attendance to receive her award.

As a charity, Life Stream Australia doesn’t budget for international travel for such an opportunity. Julie’s disability will make the journey a little more costly to ensure she arrives safely and can enjoy the experience waiting for her.

If you are unable to contribute, we understand. You may know of someone else who is in a more capable position, and we would ask that you share these details with them. As a charity, we can provide tax deductible receipts for any donations made, so there may be some benefit for yourself as well. In the event we are able to raise more than enough funds, please rest assured that we will use any remaining to support those Participants who access our services. We won’t be buying expensive gifts or luxury items, we don’t operate that way. We will make sure Julie is safely able to travel to London and then ensure our Participants benefit solely from any remaining contributions.

On behalf of Julie, her family, her colleagues and our organisation, we thank you for taking the time to consider this and urge you to find some small way you may be able to help us get Julie from Canberra to London (and back – we still need her here!) where she can represent her life’s work, our organisation, and our country, on the world’s stage.