“I had no concept of what any of that would mean, but I just held onto those goals,” says Steele, who can now boast a remarkable 13-year swimming career, with the titles of Paralympian and gold medalist under her belt. 

“We forget that we have this power within us to decide what it is that we want to have in our lives,” says Steele.

Connecting to this power from a young age, Steele won her first gold medal in competitive swimming at just 14. Then, at age 17, she represented Australia for the first time at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics in the 400-metre freestyle, breaking a national record. 

Steele was born with a congenital disability called Arthrogryposis, which affects the range of motion in the joints and impacts the cartilage in the body. She also developed Amniotic band syndrome (ABS) in the womb, affecting the shape of both her hands. 

“Sport has been everything,” says Steele. “It has shaped me. It has shaped how I react to things, and how I have managed my disability.”

“We create our own reality,” she says. 

“Things are always going to happen in your life, but it’s how you react to those things. And so when I was a kid – and when I was early in my swimming career – I would react in a way that was like a victim because the world was telling me I was a victim. But then I realised I could change that narrative and go ‘well, you might see me like that, but I don’t see myself like that’.”

Throughout her swimming career, Steele has represented Australia internationally five times, including at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. She’s also been captain of a number of Aussie swimming teams and held a Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship for eight years. 

After swimming, Steele took up wheelchair rugby. She was the only woman to be selected to play for Victoria at a national level. 

Today, Steele is an award-winning sportswoman, experienced personal coach and motivational speaker, who works in the personal development space as The Self Belief Agent. 

She’s also the Project Manager for the ‘Building Inclusive Sport Clubs’ program to promote the access and inclusion of people with disabilities in sporting clubs across Australia, working with Disability Sport Australia.

Recently, Steele was selected by the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation to become a Change Our Game ambassador. Steele is joined by seven other inspiring women in this movement to raise awareness on key issues in women’s sport. 

Steele is using this advocacy platform to create equitable change for all people with disabilities in sport. 

Emphasising the importance of her role with the Change Our Game movement, Steele says she’s proud that she and the other ambassadors have a direct opportunity to help other people feel the positive, life-changing aspects of sport that they’ve experienced. 

She says they’re able to do this “by breaking down inclusion and access issues and being able to share our expertise and make it easier for people to access the sports that they want to play.”

Looking back at her own sporting career, Steele can see clearly the changes she wished had been in place when she was competing at such a high level. These are the changes she’s working to implement for the next generation. 

And while there are some days where this change might feel impossible, Steele remains optimistic about the future.

“There are going to be days when you feel like you’re hitting your head against a brick wall,” she says. “And on those days, you just need to go for a walk or a swim in the ocean.”

“We’re not going to change the world in 24 hours because there’s so many different ways that people view women and sport and disability.” 

“We’ve all got our own perceptions or ideals of how people are meant to behave, but sometimes we need to put them aside for a bit so we can learn from other people,” she adds. 

“It’s okay if you just go, and take a deep breath, and start again.”

Change Our Game Ambassadors are using their platforms to help drive change and raise awareness on key issues and barriers for women in sport. Change Our Game is led by the Office of Women in Sport and Recreation to level the playing field for women and girls. Be sure to follow the Ambassadors’ journeys through @ChangeOurGame on socials.

The post ‘We create our own reality’: Paralympian Elle Steele on changing the narrative for women with disability appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Growing up, sport was a presence in the background of her life– played on TVs in the home or at bars– but it wasn’t until she got older that it began to emerge as an avenue of connection to other people. 

“In the backdrop of when I grew up– which was post 9/11– there were things that you could talk about with people that kind of became like a passport for your social interactions,” says Hussain.

“[Sports-related topics] were humanising and built connections with other people, where perhaps without those things, you would feel very isolated.”

It was after this realisation that she says she began to pay more attention to the current events of the sporting world, particularly cricket.

“I went to the cricket all the time with my community as a young person, so I just had that understanding and knowledge,” she said. “And when I spoke about sports, it just kind of melted away whatever barriers were between me and the rest of the world.”

As the Program Founder of her own consulting organisation Good.Human and a Board Member at the Victoria Women’s Trust, Hussain has graced the sports sector for over ten years, championing inclusion and diversity. She’s a respected media commentator and often speaks to organisations and community groups, sharing her experiences in the sector as a Muslim-Indian woman. 

Most recently, the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation for the Change Our Game movement selected Hussain to join a group of seven other women ambassadors raising awareness on key issues for women in sport. 

Between now and International Women’s Day 2024, she will be using this platform to foster belonging through sport and media, specifically with culturally and linguistically diverse women.

“It’s humbling to be an ambassador,” Hussian says. “Especially because I’m not an athlete.”

“I sort of inhabit this space in sport, where I represent a voice [for] non-athletes, kind of representative of the traditional sports fan or administrator.”

“So to be an ambassador in the capacity that I am representing people who aren’t traditionally in sport is very, very meaningful, and hopefully has an impact.”

Through her continued advocacy, Hussain says she wants to encourage and listen to other Muslim women and women of colour interested in getting involved in sport. 

“What I would love to see– and I think it’s starting to happen now– is conversations and opportunities and programs that wrap around cultures and communities to address their needs rather than kind of asking communities into existing avenues to participate in sport,” she explains.

And while Hussain does see change happening, it’s not always as meaningful as it has the potential to be. 

“That was really why I wanted to be part of this ambassador program,” she says. “To continue to hold that space quite visibly and show it is possible to inhabit.”

“We can be our full selves, with our cultural identities and religious identities and turn up in public spaces– particularly ones that are so important to the national psyche like sport.”

Hussain would love to see more meaningful diversity in positions of power in the sporting world, where there’s “agency and ability to actually impact the system”. 

Sport, she says, “has this incredible ability to bring people together, to remove those exclusionary barriers and create a level playing field”. 

While that doesn’t discount the fact that there’s been historical systemic barriers often counteracting this inclusion, Hussain notes that through her advocacy work, she often frames the conversation in a way that most sports-minded people can relate to: what’s fair or not fair. 

“I think there’s a natural feeling of fairness,” she says. “Sport is all about fairness.”

“If you’re best on the ground, it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from.”

Between now and International Women’s Day 2024, Change Our Game Ambassadors will use their platform to help drive change and raise awareness on key issues and barriers for women in sport. The Change Our Game series is put on by the Office of Women in Sport and Recreation. Be sure to follow the Ambassadors’ journeys through @ChangeOurGame on socials.

The post ‘Like a passport for your social interactions’: Rana Hussain uses sport to foster inclusion appeared first on Women's Agenda.

While there were very apparent barriers for Deaf men to participate in the sport, Hale would often watch them join local cricket clubs through their fathers, brothers, uncles and other support systems. 

For over 140 years, there had always been Deaf men’s cricket competitions– nationally, internationally and locally, in Victoria. The same couldn’t be said for women. 

“Deaf and hard of hearing men had so many more opportunities to enjoy the game, but also enjoy the camaraderie of being a part of a team, developing their cricket families and homes away from home,” says Hale. 

That’s why, at a Cricket Australia meeting in 2018, Hale brought up the possibility of creating a Deaf women’s competition.

“The staff member looked at me for a second and said ‘well, if you can get two teams up, we will put on an exhibition match’,” Hale recounts about the pivotal moment in her advocacy journey. 

“Within 48 hours, the Deaf community had come together, formed two teams, and changed the lives of many Deaf women and girls across Australia,” she says.

It was the first Deaf women’s cricket competition in Australia. Now, there are three fully formed Deaf women’s cricket teams playing for their states at the National Cricket Inclusion Championships in Brisbane in Marchant Park, and Hale says at least half of these women play regular cricket. 

“I feel really strongly about the phrase ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’,” says Hale.  “It is important that people with lived experience lead in the spaces that affect them.  Only they know intimately how being a person with that experience affects their lives and how they experience the world around them.”

As a proud Deaf woman herself, Hale has been leading and driving change through Deaf cricket for years. Most recently, she was selected as a Change Our Game ambassador to shine a light on the need for accessibility of Deaf women in sport. 

Hale is one of eight inspiring women chosen by the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation for the Change Our Game movement. It raises awareness on key issues through the platform between now and International Women’s Day 2024.

One of the biggest messages Hale is working to elevate is that not everyone is starting from the same place – a point particularly relevant to Deaf and hard of hearing women and girls.

“From my experiences in cricket, women and girls are only in recent times getting access to the game through their clubs in their own teams in safe and inclusive environments.”

“For Deaf and hard of hearing women and girls, many have never had the opportunity to pick up a ball or bat or understand the rules because of the double disadvantage they have had,” she says noting that it can often be hard for these players to “fit in and communicate effectively at local cricket clubs”.

“It’s for these reasons that we cannot have the same expectations and apply the same rules of men’s cricket to a group that is only just starting out. We need to pivot and adjust to fit,” she says. “This doesn’t make women’s and girls’ sports less deserving, important or exciting – it’s just a different starting point.”

Hale also says that while she feels a great responsibility to open doors for Deaf and hard of hearing women and girls, she cannot speak for everyone’s different lived experiences.

“Leadership for me means capturing as many voices of Deaf and hard of hearing people that I can, and elevating them all as equally as I can, by stepping out of the way, and opening the doors to let others lead,” she says.

What this really comes down to, Hale says, is having empathy and understanding that we all “have a deep human need to belong”. 

“We need to ask ourselves: ‘Are we doing things the way that we have always done them, just because it’s the ‘rules’, or are there truly things that we can adjust in our sports to make them more inclusive of everyone?’,” she says.

“Sometimes the smallest adjustments can make the biggest difference to inclusion.”

Between now and International Women’s Day 2024, Change Our Game Ambassadors will use their platform to help drive change and raising awareness on key issues and barriers for women in sport. The Change Our Game series is put on by the Office of Women in Sport and Recreation. Be sure to follow the Ambassadors’ journeys through @ChangeOurGame on socials.

The post ‘The smallest adjustments can make the biggest difference’: Melissa Hale is changing the game for deaf women in cricket appeared first on Women's Agenda.