Words by Maya Hart | Photography by Sky Sirens Creative Team
There are a lot of misconceptions about chronic illness, disability and neurodivergence. There are misconceptions about what we can and can’t do, what we can wear, and even what we should look like. These misconceptions are incredibly harmful to our communities, as chronic illness and neurodivergence exist in all shades, all sizes, all ages, and all variations.
We wanted to give our students the opportunity to share their experiences, discuss what these labels mean to them, and their dance & aerial journey! Complete with a special guest interview from Aimee, and a Teacher Feature from our incredibly gentle, yet incredibly talented instructor Bolly, this project aims to showcase our community to the world. Additionally, seeing disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent people in the media, wearing sexy lingerie, and doing incredible things is extremely powerful.
We exist, so we deserve to be seen. We deserve to see ourselves in the media.
Venture into the world of our sensational Sirens with us as we learn about and celebrate each other.
| Click on the squares below to view our student profiles |
Our primary goal for our student spotlight photoshoots and interviews is to gain valuable feedback that we can use to improve the accessibility and inclusion at Sky Sirens. We know that we cannot know what everyone of every community needs without asking them directly, so Maya sat down with the participants and encouraged free and open feedback.
Catch-up Classes
One of our students mentioned that the catch-up class policy, which typically requires two-hours notice, is incongruent with the unpredictable and varying nature of their chronic illnesses. While we have already been making allowances in these instances, we have realised that this exception has not been communicated as well as it should have been. In response to this feedback, we have revised our Catchup Class Policy to make further accommodations for chronically ill students - the two-hour notice period has been waived, and students have an additional two weeks to use their catch-up class. We have made this new policy displayed prominently on our website to inform our community.
Website Accessibility
Another piece of feedback we received requested that we add a button to our website that allows users to enlarge the text on the page for people with Low Vision. This presents a significant coding challenge using our website platform, but we are actively working it out. In the meantime, we have changed the base text of the website to be relative to the base text size set by the user – so therefore, users who have their operating system set to larger text will see the same size text on our website.
Do you have more feedback for us?
If you would like to provide us with more feedback regarding accessibility and inclusivity at Sky Sirens, please email maya@skysirens.com.au and they will take it on board!