Latest DnD Activities

Dear DnD members,

Welcome to our late autumn, beginning of winter newsletter edition.

As you can see part of this newsletter is dedicated to the fabulous

and unique Stella Young. We would like to remember her as a lovely friend, comedian and activist for everyone. By remembering Stella,

we would like also to acknowledge other less known comedians and actors with a disability who by playing their roles, they show how

good they are in their field and raise awareness on disability. This awareness is paramount in showing that disability is simply part of

diversity in society, since we are all different and unique.

When diversity is respected, cherished and considered to be part of

mainstream society then we achieve equality and same opportunities in life for everyone. This is what DnD aims for.

In the last 3 months DnD has been very busy in expanding its own program and running new support groups. We got to the point where

DnD was running 8 support groups at the same time and was sup-porting an average of 50 participants a week. Now, the Conflict Reso-

lution Group (Your Life, Your Way) has finished and the feedback we

received from over 50 participants to the group was great. We hope to be able to receive funding again to continue this group with more

sessions in the new year.

We currently have 7 support groups which include the Men’s group,

Women’s group, two Music groups (St Albans and Preston), Creative Writing group, Arts group and Theatre group. All the groups will con-

tinue till the end of the year and you are welcome to join and get more information on any of them.

DnD is also lobbying and working with the NDIA and SARU to make sure that self advocacy funding will continue under the funding mod-

el. We would like DnD to support clients from CALD background ac-cessing the NDIS to make sure they make the most of it in their eve-

ryday lives. Also, we need to make sure advocacy and self advocacy will always be there to support and empower clients by enabling

them to feel confident about themselves to make informed decisions

on their lives.

Contact us on 9367 6044 or email Christian@mrcnorthwest.org.au

D I V E R S I T Y A N D

D I S A B I L I T Y

B E T H E C H A N G E Y O U

W A N T

DnD NEWSLETTER

A P R I L — J U N E 2 0 1 5 V O L U M E 3 , I S S U E 9

ST ELLA YOUNG

“I dance as a po-

litical statement,

because disabled

bodies are inher-

ently political,

but mostly I

dance for all the

same reasons an-

yone else does:

because it heals

my spirit and fills

me with joy.”

“I’ve been an

atheist for a long

time, ever since I

first heard that

there is only a

stairway to heav-

en.”

“I promise to

grab every oppor-

tunity with both

hands, to say yes

as often as I can,

to take risks, to

scare myself stu-

pid, and to have…

fun.”

“The quote, ‘the

only disability in

life is a bad atti-

tude...’ The rea-

son that’s

bullsh*** is no

amount of smil-

ing at a flight of

stairs has ever

made it turn into

a ramp. No

amount of stand-

ing in the middle

of a bookshelf

and radiating a

positive attitude

is going to turn

all those books

into braille.”

D N D N E W S L E T T E R

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M A D E L E I N E S T E W A R T:

Comedy, Disability & Crowd Surfing

In the middle of a grassy field in Wollongong, Madeleine Stewart is discussing her limbs. "I was born with one arm," she says. "Though I often lie and say otherwise. I tell people that a shark bit it off or that, like Van Gogh, I cut it off as a symbol of artistic expression." Stewart, who lives in Campbelltown and has been mentored by Adam Hills, emits an extraordi-nary energy and honesty. "It's very complicated," she says. "You try to let it shape you as a comedian because there's no getting past it. But at the same time you don't want it to consume you. You don't want your show to be all about one arm. So you have to find that good balance between the two." Aware there are a lot of politics surrounding comedy about disability, Stewart says she walks a "razor's edge" between what is funny and what may offend. "But I try to be as honest and as free as I possible can. And if they don't like it ... tough. It's my body, I can say what I like about it." The 20-year-old has been participating in the Sydney Comedy Festival's Break Out program which mentors five handpicked emerging comedians. Supported by funding from Marrickville Council and Century Entertainment, Break Out provides feedback from industry professionals, and features workshops on developing material and dealing with the practicalities of delivering

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live comedy. Stewart, along with the four other comics, will reveal their honed and polished live work at showcase performances during the festival. "It's teaching you the things that normally you would just pick up as you go along," she says. "The program prevents you from making the mistakes that other comedians do when they start out. You understand the industry more, how to market yourself and how festivals are run." Even performance anxiety is tackled. One workshop featured comedian Susie Youssef talking about the different ways comedians prepare mentally and physically for a show. "It's really been rearing us up," she says. "From little eggs to chooks." "I have a crowd-surfing section and, no matter how many people are in the crowd, that goes ahead," she says. "My smallest audience in Melbourne has been 15. At the Adelaide Fringe the smallest crowd was four." But, in a sign of how persuasive Greenhalgh is, those four people got up and helped her ice dance (on roller skates), crowd-surf, engender costume changes, become an orchestra and enact a radio play. They were also wowed by the world's smallest display of pyrotechnics and some dexterously groiny acrobatics. "I put a lot of trust into the audience and if they're not into it we all suffer," she says.

This article was written by Lenny Ann Low Law and posted on The Canberra Times website on

April 9, 2015. Picture on page 6 from TheMusic.com.au.

Source: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/comedy/meet-the-sydney-comedy-

festivals-rising-stars-penny-greenhalgh-madeleine-stewart-cyrus-bezyan-and-paige-hally-

20150408-1mfuev.html

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F R A N C E S C A M A R T I N E Z: 'I've accepted my cerebral

palsy - now I'm calling on others to join the revolution'

Ever the procrastinator, I sat down to write my 2011 stand-up show one week before it was due to open at the Adelaide Fringe. I knew the title was going to be "WHAT THE **** IS NORMAL?!" and that it had been bubbling away in my head for years. I also knew that life, Facebook and Twitter had made it almost impossible to convert that bubbling into actual words that could be said out loud. Luckily, when I finally switched off the internet (it is possible, folks), the show flowed out over a couple of days in several terrifyingly easy splurges. I had, after all, been wait-ing to write this show all my life...

When I was two, I was diagnosed with athetoid cerebral palsy. As if this wasn't enough for my young parents to hear, the consultant also declared that I was mentally retarded. My parents knew that wasn't true. (They may have reconsidered this when, aged 10, I bought a Jason Do-novan album.)

When the label "ABNORMAL" is slapped on you before you're out of nappies, your self-esteem is destined for oblivion. It would be years before I started to feel "abnormal" but, even when I be-gan to wobble around on my feet, there were the stirrings of a vague unease in my stomach; a faint feeling that the world viewed me as a pity object – faulty, broken, disabled. Thankfully, my family forgot about my palsied brain, and smothered me with love, so I pushed away that distant discomfort and got on with living.

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I rocked up to infant school with a crazily optimistic outlook, ready to climb trees, wind up teachers and seduce young boys. I'd decided boys were awesome probably before I knew what "awesome" meant. Junior school was nearly as much fun (aside from the "education" bit) and the presence of a palsy hardly registered on my radar. As unlikely as it might sound, I felt total-ly normal.

High school soon remedied that. There probably isn't an environment more effective at remind-ing you of your shortcomings than an all-girls school. I realised with shock that I was, without a doubt, ABNORMAL. Not just because of my disability but on account of various crucial factors such as my choice of music (Frank Sinatra was not cool, apparently). So when, aged 14, I won a part in Grange Hill, I was frigging ecstatic to be rescued from that teenage prison. However, even though the show was a hugely positive experience, my inner confidence remained as shaky as my balance. By the time I left, I had the self-worth of a wet sock. I had fully taken on board my classmates' views of me and had privately declared myself to be a loser who would end her days as a wobbly old spinster with only Old Blue Eyes to get her through those long lonely nights.

On the surface, I still ap-peared happy, but I was ob-sessed with trying to be "normal" all the time. Brain damage isn't easy to hide but I gave it an admirable shot. When the stress of trying not to be wobbly in public became unbearable, I stopped the "normal" act and faced my demons. By which I mean I stopped go-ing out, moped around my house and moaned a lot to my brother.

At the beginning of 1999, I reluctantly joined a comedy workshop as research for an acting role. Standing (and visibly shaking) on stage, I addressed my wobbliness head-on. In-stead of dying with embarrassment as people's eyes drilled holes through me, I felt something shift inside. Through a simple joke, I'd found a way to speak honestly about who I was. I had finally wobbled out of the disability closet.

Later, in the pub, Dylan, another student, congratulated me on my "electric" walk. He said he loved the way I talked and moved and shook on stage. I thought he was crazy. He was, but he was also beautiful. So I listened to him. And I'm glad I did because he changed my life. He made me realise that nobody is normal. I wasn't wrong or faulty or abnormal – I was just Fran-cesca. Everyone on the planet is different and that is normal. I was just part of the crazily di-verse species we call human. I could now see that my walk wasn't "bad", it was simply my walk.

Martinez aged 14, far right, playing Rachel in Grange Hill (BBC)

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For the first time since I was a child, I felt proud of myself. That night, ly-ing in bed, I apologised to my body for hating it for so long, and decided to like it instead. Finally, I wanted to be me.

This radical shift in perspective trans-formed me from whingy git to a very grateful one in minutes. It allowed me to dump society's unhealthy aspi-rations and focus on what I did have. And it made me see that all the soul-crushing anxieties that had blighted my recent years had nothing whatso-ever to do with being wobbly. The latter had just been a side issue. I was living in a world where self-loathing was absolutely normal.

Most people around me – including the obscenely beautiful and su-premely able-bodied – suffered from terrible body image. And it had noth-ing to do with any kind of palsy and everything to do with a culture that religiously promotes impossible ide-als. The real cause of my unhappi-ness was growing up in a world which continually tells us that we're not good enough, that we have to conform to a predefined set of pa-rameters in order to be considered successful, beautiful, desirable. (This, despite the fact that most of those successful, beautiful and desirable people seemed to have an awful lot of breakdowns.) We're told to fear difference in ourselves and others, and that's why much of the media projects such an airbrushed version of reality. I wondered why physical perfection was always linked to happiness when it often ap-peared to cause problems. I mean, if being rich and beautiful leads to inner peace, wouldn't we all be buying self-help books from Kate Moss? So who did this ubiquitous superficial value sys-tem really serve?

It became clear why this mass worship of conformity dominates our culture. It's not because it spreads light and joy and peace across the globe, it's because our society is built on consump-tion. And consumerism will only thrive if you can convince enough people that they're lacking in some way, and that what they really need is the latest product/outfit/look to be "normal". That's it. We're sold this lie so that we'll keep buying crap that we don't need. So that we'll continue to attempt to attain "normality" through purchases and surgeries and upgrades and iShit.

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Incessant advertising gnaws away at our self-worth and then generously steps in to fill the gap. Again and again. But this empty cycle of acquisition and obsessing about trivialities just leads to debt, unhappiness, and a deep dissatisfaction with our lives and bodies. It is a culture that is funda-mentally at odds with the fact that difference and disability are a natural, normal part of life.

The sinister truth is that this slavish adherence to superficial values not only fuels the endless fires of consumerism, it also disempowers people so that they are unable to focus on the really im-portant stuff like protecting human rights, reducing inequality, tackling an unjust economic system, challenging the corporate takeover of our democracies, and averting environmental destruction. Promoting "normality" is a political choice that serves the powerful, while leaving the rest of us (ie "good citizens") dissatisfied and insecure. Who needs armies to control people if you can keep them busy chasing shiny things instead, or struggling to make ends meet?

That’s why accepting yourself as you are is an act of civil disobedience. Because you’re thinking for

Because you're thinking for yourself. You're not partaking in a cycle that is destroying the environ-ment and which functions by exploiting millions of people who are producing all this junk on pov-erty wages. And you're also freeing up valuable time and energy to focus on things that desperately need our attention. Performing the show around the world has been an incredible experience. I've received numerous messages from people of all ages telling me that understanding why these pres-sures to be "normal" exist has freed them from those pressures. That's why I wanted to explore these ideas further in a book.

So don't let anyone else make you hate yourself. Embrace your body, whatever shape it is and however it works, because it gives you this wonderful, crazy, beautiful, fleeting experience called life. And because every single human right we enjoy today has been won by people focusing out-ward not inwards.

This article was written by Francesca Martinez and posted on The Independent website on August 6, 2014.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/comedian-francesca-martinez-ive-accepted-my-cerebral-palsy--now-im-calling-on-others-to-join-the-revolution-9652761.html

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D N D N E W S L E T T E R

Dear S T E L L A Y O U N G,

The world has lost its fizz without you, Love Benjamin Law

Occasionally, when you make a new friend, you fall so stupidly and hopelessly in love with them, it's all you can do to prevent yourself from exclaiming to their face, "I love you! And although we've only just met, let's be friends forever". Social etiquette and moronic ideas – pfft, you know, like "dignity" – stop most of us from doing that. But one of the things I adored about Stella Young was how, if she did like you, she'd rest her cheek in the palm of her hand, look at you dreamily and proclaim: "I like you." She first said this to me at a Melbourne party several years ago, in the exact moment I wanted to tell her the same thing. Happily, I'm not unique in this. Stella loved a lot of peo-ple; she made herself easy to love. Like all of her friends, I'm utterly hollowed out by the news of Stella's death. Stella and I were born in the same year and wrote for the same magazines and websites. I start getting choked up every time I realise no one will ever get to read Stella's debut book, a memoir project we discussed and workshopped every time we met.

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She had several prospective titles for the book, but my favourite was, Are You Imaginary? (And Other Frequently Asked Questions) – a reference to something hilarious a young boy once asked to her face.

But instead of dwelling on what could've been, I remind myself of how much Stella actually did. I marvel at the fact her TED talk – on how disabled people don't just exist as inspiration for everyone else – has been viewed nearly 1.5 million times and translated into 27 lan-guages. I think of the incredible work she did as editor of ABC's Ramp Up website, as a host for the Paralympics and as a panellist on Q&A. And I get a shit-eating grin remembering how she won Best Newcomer at the 2014 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and the smackdowns she issued in advocating for the NDIS.

And I learned so much from her, like how people with disabilities living in Australia have the poorest quality of life of anywhere in the developed world, ranking 27th out of the 27 OECD countries. It makes sense Stella was qualified to be a teacher. Whatever she was doing – comedy, advocacy or activism – she was always educating by default.

Selfishly though, I'm most proud that a schmuck like me got to call Stella a friend at all. One of my favourite memories of her was from several weeks ago: Stella was over at our apartment for dinner, and she arrived carrying an arrangement of flowers so big, you could-n't even see her. She was basically a bouquet on wheels. And she brought champagne – ACTUAL REAL CHAMPAGNE – just because. Then she made us all roar with laughter, re-counting how she'd recently broken her ribs on the dance floor getting inebriated with local drag queens. Stella didn't need to bring champagne. The woman WAS champagne.

D N D N E W S L E T T E R

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Two weeks ago, after the tragic and unexpected death of Phillip Hughes, people all over Australia paid their respects by putting out their bats. To honour Stella – a tireless advocate for disability access – I encourage you put out your ramps. Create accessible pathways. If you're using disabled toilets for storage, for the love of god, clear them the hell out. Make sure your venues, businesses and workplaces are wheelchair-friendly. Because it doesn't matter how much goodwill you have towards people who use wheelchairs, you need to change things yourself. As Stella once said, "No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp." And finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell Stella, I love you. I'm grateful to your family for raising someone as remarkable as you. We'll miss your Lisa Simpson voice and scandalised squawk of a laugh. We'll miss your ever-changing palette of nails and hair. We'll miss your ability to scour through complicated government policy and call out bullshit. And we're completely broken-hearted by the crip-shaped hole you've left in our hearts.

The world has lost a pocket-sized warrior, foul-mouthed wonder and irreplaceable babe.

This article was written by Benjamin Law and posted on The Sydney Morning Herald website

on December 8, 2014.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/comedy/dear-stella-young-the-world-has-

lost-its-fizz-without-you-love-benjamin-law-20141208-122rbs.html

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On the hit AMC television series Breaking Bad, RJ Mitte portrayed Walter “Flynn” White Jr., a young man with cerebral palsy (CP), the neurologic condition that Mitte was diagnosed with as a toddler. One of the few television actors with a visible disability, Mitte helped shed light on CP, which is marked by impaired motor coordination and affects one in 323 children in the United States.

Unlike his on-screen character, Mitte has a milder form of CP, and does not use crutches or slur his speech. Yet the 22-year-old actor has faced many of the same medical and social challenges as White.

“People with CP overcome hurdles every day,” Mitte says. “One thing I've learned from my disability is that when there is an obstacle, you adapt and grow. You can't let that obstacle break you down and discourage you.”

Adopted shortly after birth by Ray Frank Mitte Jr. and his wife, Dyna, Mitte was a happy child who walked on his toes as a toddler. Doctors told his parents that if he did not walk normally by age 4, they would perform a heel operation.

At the age of 3, a friend of Mitte's grandmother recognized the signs of CP in RJ, and urged the family to have him evaluated at Shriners Hospitals for Children–Shreveport, LA, their hometown. There, doctors diagnosed Mitte with CP and formulated a treatment plan that included wearing leg and body casts and night braces to straighten his limbs.

Braces, splints, or casts can improve range of motion in joints and hand or leg function and joint stability in children with CP, says Yolanda Holler-Managan, MD, a pediatric neurologist with Cove-nant Children's Hospital in Lubbock, TX, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology

Breaking Good: After the role of a lifetime, Breaking Bad's R J M I T T E is busting ste-

reotypes about cerebral palsy and speaking out against bullying.

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and the Neurology Now editorial advisory board. “Early intervention has been shown to help chil-dren with CP to develop more normal posture, muscle tone, and movement patterns,” Dr. Holler-Managan says. “CP can't be cured, but treatment can greatly improve a child's speech and move-ment abilities.”

In addition to overcoming physical challenges, Mitte also had to learn how to deflect taunting by other children.

“I was verbally harassed, knocked down, and even had my hand bro-ken,” Mitte says. “Having CP made me a target for bullies, and I learned that kids with disabilities are twice as likely to be bullied as other kids.”

In October, Mitte joined forces with Shriners Hospitals for Children as the celebrity spokesperson for their “Cut the Bull” campaign. Supporters are encouraged to share Mitte's sto-ry, which is on the Cut the Bull website, as well as to take a pledge at their school or in their communi-ty to stand up against bullying.

The actor says he was fortunate to have had a few close friends who defended him when he was bullied, and he now encourages others to be that kind of friend.

The actor says he was fortunate to have had a few close friends who defended him when he was bullied, and he now encourages others to be that kind of friend.

“When you see a child being bul-lied, be that hero, and speak up and say something,” Mitte says. “Be the advocate you would want someone to be for you.”

As a young boy, Mitte took both karate and martial arts classes that not only helped his spasticity, but also increased his confidence.

“If I was pushed, I learned to get back up, look the bully in the eye, and ask them what their prob-lem was,” Mitte says. “It's important to take a stand, and to show bullies they can't push you around.”

Rather than allow others to break his spirit, Mitte says his experiences have made him stronger and even more determined to succeed in life. When his younger sister, Lacianne Carriere, was

RJ Mitte: Breaking public misconceptions of disability

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discovered by a talent agent and invited to an audition in Los Angeles in 2005, 13-year-old Mitte and their mom accompanied her. The agent decided to sign both siblings, and Mitte added acting classes to his daily regimen of speech therapy and exercise.

His enthusiasm and raw talent quickly landed him roles on television shows, including Hannah Mon-tana, Weeds, Everyone Hates Chris, and7th Heaven. In 2008, he landed the role of Walter White's son.

“My role on Breaking Bad was the opportunity of a lifetime,” Mitte says. “I hope I was able to edu-cate viewers about CP and to give them a better understanding of what it means to live with a physical disability.”

Since the series ended last year, Mitte has had a recurring role on the television show Switched at Birth, and recently finished filming the movie Who's Driving Doug. He has modeled in ads for the Gap clothing store, and frequently tours the country speaking at universities, high schools, and col-leges about the stigma associated with disabilities and the bullying that people with chronic illness-es often suffer.

When he’s not acting, modeling or speaking, Mitte exercises or plays sports, both to maintain flexi-bility and stress, “I’ve always loved exercise,” he says. “I hated wearing leg braces, because I used to get lots of blisters. I played soccer for six seasons, which helped me get to the point where I no longer needed braces.” Today he runs, lifts weights, and works out on the Today he runs, lifts weights, and works out on the elliptical machine. “It's easy to get lazy,” he says, “but I know that

regular stretching and exercise help my tight muscles.” He works on his hand-eye coordination by playing video games, a strategy that researchers at the University of Toronto recently confirmed makes learning new sensorimotor skills, or eye-hand coordination, easier.

RJ Mitte in character as Breaking Bad’s Walter “Flynn” White Jr.

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Encouraging children with CP to play sports is one of the best ways to make them more fit and strong, says pediatric neurologist Janice Brunstrom, MD, founder of the St. Louis Children's Hospital Cerebral Palsy Center, who also has CP. “Chronic pain, fractures, scoliosis, and hip dislocation are all side effects of immobility for people with CP.”

A strong advocate of the benefits of exercise, Dr. Brunstrom founded the Carol and Paul Hatfield Cerebral Palsy Sports and Rehabilitation Center at the St. Louis Children's Hospital, where children with CP and other disabilities can take part in basketball, swimming, dance, martial arts, and more. All sports activities are supervised by physical therapists who are trained to adapt activities to each individual. “Participating in sports gives kids the opportunity to be social with their peers, which is very important,” Dr. Brunstrom says.

Regular exercise is also good for overall health. A 2011 report released by the Health Resources and Services Administration showed that obesity rates for children with disabilities were 38 percent

higher than for other children. And adults with disabilities are three times more likely than others to develop heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Many people think that because some people with CP have a speech impediment they have lower intelligence, but that's a myth,” says Mitte. Given all his years talking to doctors and his life experi-ence, Mitte jokes, “I'm probably ahead of the curve.”

Mitte considers CP an ability, not a disability, and is proud of how it's made him the person he is today.

“I've learned that no one can stop you from achieving your dreams,” he says. “It's important to fo-cus on your goal and to move forward and be the person you're meant to be.”

“Be the advocate you would want someone to be for you.”

This article was written by Linda Childers and posted in the NeurologyNow journal, in the February/

March issue, 2015.

Source: http://journals.lww.com/neurologynow/Fulltext/2015/11010/

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P K N: Finnish punk band with a difference take a punt at Eurovision title

PKN, middle-aged rockers with learning diffi-culties , are tipped to be the runaway winners in the race to represent their nation in the fi-nals in Vienna.

After a transgender diva and a bearded drag act, a group of middle-aged punk rockers with learning disabilities could be the next performers to challenge prejudice at the Eurovision song con-test. They are far from the kitsch and camp of Dana International or Conchita Wurst, who became heroes for Europe’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community after Eurovision victories in 1998 and 2014.

But Finland’s PKN are aiming to raise awareness of people with learning disabilities – and “have a fucking good time” along the way, the band say.

“If Finland wasn’t ready before for a punk Eurovision entry, they are now,” said Sami Helle, the band’s bass player. PKN, short for Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (Pertti Kurikka’s Nameday), comprises four men with an average age over 40. Their explosive Eurovision entry, Always I Have To, is about having to do things you might not enjoy , such as washing up or eating properly.

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Barely 90 seconds long, it has an anthemic quality and its refrain, “aina mun pitää”, is much easier to sing along with than the double umlaut may suggest. The song’s success has horrified Eurovision purists. Wiwibloggs, a website devoted to everything Eurovision, gave it one out of 10. “This is not music. It’s noise with a good backstory,” wrote one reviewer.

“PKN’s victory [on Saturday] is likely, but not the only option - they have their supporters, who are very loud in social media and internet polls, but it’s not clear if they will really vote for the band,” said Sami Luukela of wiwibloggs. If Finns vote it through on Saturday, PKN will be the first punk en-try to the Eurovision contest.

But Finland has a history of breaking the Eurovision mould – Lordi, Eurovision’s first heavy metal glam-rock monster band, gave the country its only victory in the contest in 2006 with Hard Rock Hallelujah. Before that Finland was a country of devoted Eurovision losers, a proud tradition it re-verted to in 2009 with yet another last place finish – its ninth in the contest’s history.

three occasions Finland has mustered “nul points” at the Eurovision finals, in 1963, 1965 and 1982. Yet it was the Finns who in 1984 set up the Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l’Eurovision,

which has grown to become the biggest and most established fan club devoted to the event, with branches in more than 40 countries. The band offer no concessions to Eurovision norms of style and dress, making no changes in how they look or what they wear. “It’s punk rock – the same style that we have always been, we’re not going to change for nobody, just be our own selves,” Helle said. “We are rebelling against society in different ways, but we are not political,” he added. “We are changing attitudes somewhat, a lot of people are coming to our gigs and we have a lot of fans. We don’t want people to vote for us to feel sorry for us, we are not that different from everybody else – just normal guys with a mental handicap.”

PKN came together in 2009 around the guitarist Pertti Kurikka in the formerly working-class district

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of in Kallio, northern Helsinki. A song of the same name became their first hit with ringing power chords over a poignant lyric: “I don’t want to live in an institution, I want to live in Kallio … I miss the respect, equality of life.”

Since then the band – whose other members are Kari Aalto (vocals) and Toni Välitalon (drums) – have released five EPs and an album, and have toured outside Scandinavia including to the US, UK, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. All the band’s songs are in Finnish. PKN’s rise was the sub-ject of an award-winning 2012 documentary, The Punk Syndrome (Kovasikajuttu), billed as a story of rebellion against the mainstream by people with disabilities. The lyrics to the group’s music range from the mundane – “I had a coffee and took a dump” – to rage at their experience of discrimina-tion, such as the song Puhevika: “I must eat pig food in the nuthouse, I keep my mouth shut or they will stab me …”

PKN’s ability to sing and talk about their daily lives in this way makes them a political band “whether they like it or not”, the Finnish Musical Quarterly has noted.

Teuvo Merkkiniemi, the band’s manager, said: “They try to change the world by their songs and playing: they are an example to other people with handicaps.”

Topi Latukka, lead singer of Softengine, the Finnish boy band that took 11th place at last year’s Eurovision, said he was full of respect for PKN and the band’s attitude, “even though musically it’s not exactly our thing”. “We hope that they will represent Finland in Euro-vision,” he said.

Yrjö Heinonen, professor of cultural studies at Jyväskylä University, said: “Finns have been quite sensitive about their international image, and PKN participating in the Vienna finals would probably result in mixed emotions. “If PKN won it there, the majority of Finns would be proud of them; if not, many Finns would feel that it was a shameful mistake to send them there and that it would have harmed the international image of Finland.”

This article was written by David Crouch and posted on The Guardian website, on the 27th February, 2015.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/27/finnish-punk-band-take-punt-eurovision-title

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