By REBECCA BILLS
WORLD renowned wheelchair skater Christiaan Bailey took to the Mount Evelyn Skate Park to show off some moves with some extra special chair-skaters.
After the Yarra Ranges Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy launch at Mount Evelyn’s Station House last Thursday, Bailey took to the skate park with some local boys to demonstrate their wheelchair skating talents.
Bailey spends his time travelling on tour as a professional surfer and founded the Ocean Healing Group – a not-for-profit organisation that provides surf adventures to wheelchair-bound young people and their parents.
The pro surfer and skater from Santa Cruz, California, spoke at the launch, and said after his 2006 skateboarding accident, that left him paralysed from the waist down, he had been determined to change the stigma associated with disability.
“Normally, with rural communities you find this general ambivalence to disability, so to be able to come into the community and help them change some of those perspectives and misconceptions is a phenomenal opportunity,” he said.
“Our biggest goal is to empower kids in chairs to come out and break down their own personal barriers and have a go at some sports that normally they wouldn’t have access to.
“With the adaptive surf and the especially the WCMX chair-skating aspect, it’s something that they can come down to their local park and do something off their own back, and it doesn’t require bureaucracies and teams.”
Yarra Ranges mayor Fiona McAllister said a range of council projects were directly influenced by the Health and Wellbeing strategy and she was passionate about creating a healthy and active community for all residents.
“I think we have achieved a lot, but I think there is still a lot to be achieved yet – not just around infrastructure but around attitudes and social cultures,” she said.
“Having someone like Christiaan here is just the right reminder that with the right mindset amazing things can blossom.”
Cr McAllister said the strategy provided an approach to ensure services and projects were delivered with a focus on active ageing, healthy eating, place-based community planning, gender equality and social, disability and cultural inclusiveness.
“This is a journey we have been on for a long time and it’s always great to see a refreshed commitment to it,” she said.
“I am very passionate about inclusion, health and wellbeing as well as all the other elements this strategy talks about.”
