Students champion people with disability

The Hon Jane Prentice, Assistant Minister for Disability Services, today helped launch Project Open Doors – a Griffith University initiative that aims to break down misconceptions about people with disability.

Mrs Prentice said the project will give journalism students the opportunity to get to know people with disability, and share their stories.

“Project Open Doors will look into the issues faced by people with disability, and will also highlight all the ways they positively contribute to society,” Mrs Prentice said.

“In turn, I am sure the journalism students will be impressed by the people with disability they meet.

“About one in five Australians have a disability, so it is important that people with disability have their stories told like everyone else.”

Stories will be published on the Project Open Doors website – projectopendoors.org – in both written and multimedia formats.

Project Open Doors is based on a similar project created by Griffith University in 2015 called Project Safe Space (projectsafespace.org), which focused on the impact of domestic violence.

“We have had great success with Project Safe Space – we have published more than 58 articles and some stories have been viewed by more than 3000 people,” said Griffith University lecturer Faith Valencia-Forrester.

“We hope this Project will not only challenge people to think about issues that people with disability face on a daily basis, but inspire people to think differently about people with disability.”

To find out more, visit projectopendoors.org