News Archive

It’s Disability Awareness Week - a time to focus on the lives of people with disabilities, highlight the barriers and celebrate their strengths, abilities and achievements.

The team at UniAccess provides assistance to UWA students with medical conditions or disability, and also to those who are recognised carers of a person with a disability or medical condition. The team are equipped to recommend the best options to enable these students to participate fully in university life.

One such student is Ming Luo.

Ming is legally blind but that does not stop her achieving academic excellence and living a rich and full life. However she has had many challenges to overcome since her vision began deteriorating in her mid-teens.

“Since then, I have found it increasingly difficult to read and write, as well as perform some other daily tasks. I have had to adopt alternative methods for completing tasks, including studying, such as incorporating the use of various assistive technologies.

“But I don’t believe that my disability has affected my ability to study, or to achieve my objectives. My disability has merely created a few speedbumps, which may slow me down or add a few more challenges to my journey, but it does not diminish my ability to reach my final destination,” says Ming.

Through collaboration with UniAccess and her unit coordinators, Ming has been able to smooth the speedbumps.  For example, academic Martin Firth enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to make his statistics course accessible to her.  After discussion between UniAccess, Ming and Martin, UniAccess employed a laboratory assistant to sit alongside Ming during class to assist her to learn a statistical package essential to the unit and help her read the produced data.

“The support I’ve received from UniAccess has helped me study to my full potential.”

And she’s certainly making her mark. While working towards her Bachelor of Commerce, Ming has also recently competed for Australia in an international tournament of goalball – a Paralympic sport - and is studying for her AmusA level for practical piano.

Ming’s also passionate about dispelling the myths and stigma around people with disabilities and has a pivotal position on the Youth Disability Advocacy Network’s steering committee advocating for young people living with a disability.

If you have any questions about UniAccess, you can contact the office on 6488 2423 or [email protected] .