Australians with disability tell their stories for International Day of People with Disability 2025
IDPwD 2025 content creator Abbey Faulkner interviews Dragons fullback Clint Gutherson at the Dally M Awards. (ABC)
The ABC is proud to mark its sixth year of coverage for International Day of People with Disability, in partnership with IDPwD.
From November 19 to December 10, the ABC will feature stories by people with disability from across Australia and around the world, shining a spotlight on the stories, achievements and challenges of the 5.5 million Australians with disability.
About IDPwD
December 3 is the United Nations International Day of People with Disability, a day dedicated to increasing awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.
The 2025 theme is "fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress".
For more information, visit the United Nations website.
What the ABC is doing
Over three weeks, stories will air across the ABC's radio networks, including ABC Classic, Radio National, triple j, ABC Kids Listen, and local radio stations.
Fifty musicians with disability will also be showcased on ABC's IDPwD 2025 Spotify playlist.
On December 3, Rage will feature music from Wild At Heart, a community of songwriters, singers, rappers, musicians and artists living with visible and invisible disabilities and gender diversity.
Kids listen's News Time podcast will also release an IDPwD-focused episode hosted by Nas Campanella.
Additionally, ABC IDPwD content creators will produce interviews and host radio programs across ABC Sunshine Coast, ABC North Queensland, ABC Brisbane, and ABC Classic, with transcripts available for audio on-demand.
Comedian, actor and advocate Loz Booth has partnered with Play School and ABC Sport to produce a series of social media reels addressing disability representation on Australian screens and highlighting barriers within para sports.
This content will appear on ABC Kids Instagram, ABC Kids YouTube and ABC Kids Community Facebook, as well as ABC Sport Instagram.
Loz Booth joins Play School's Jay Laga'aia and Humpty on set to mark International Day of People with Disability. (ABC)
"Working across ABC Sport and Play School has been such an amazing opportunity," Loz said.
"Each showed me a completely different side of content creation, from seeing Play School's production come to life from script to shoot, to learning how ABC Sport develops and crafts engaging stories.
"It's been an incredible experience that's taught me new skills and given me a real appreciation for the creative process, which I'll take with me into the future," she said.
Recently, Abbey Faulkner from season one of The Assembly sat down with 2025 NRL Dally M Medallist James Tedesco to talk about the Sydney Roosters' season and what it means to win two Player of the Year awards.
The Assembly season-two students with mentor Leigh Sales. (ABC)
Audiences can stream the second series of The Assembly on ABC iview, where mentor Leigh Sales guides a new and larger cohort of autistic journalism students as they interview well-known Australian figures including Richard Roxburgh, Maggie Beer, Steve Waugh, Julia Morris, Ray Martin and Guy Sebastian.
ABC iview will also feature a dedicated disability collection, including the crime drama Patience and the BBC docuseries Inside Our Minds, which uses CGI and animation to explore the lives of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.
Early next year, Gardening Australia will feature work from IDPwD ABC content creator Sarah Korte, who shares how gardening brings her joy and refuge, offering audiences a fresh perspective on autistic life.
Alongside its TV programs, the ABC will also release a series of IDPwD reels across its social media accounts, designed to entertain, educate and recognise the lived experiences of individuals with disability.
This year's ABCQueer content creators will share their stories through costume, illustration, photography, writing and video across ABCQueer Instagram and in the ABCQueer newsletter.
ABC International is mentoring two elite athletes with disability to produce audio and digital content for ABC Pacific and ABC Asia, with Bocce champion Bernadette Lim from the Philippines, and wheelchair table tennis gold medallist Mere Roden from Fiji taking part. As part of this work, Mere will interview para-athlete Selina Seau for ABC Pacific's Fresh off the Field program.
Compass teams up with comedian and advocate Madeleine Stewart for Intimate Access, a series that explores sex, desire and disability, including access to toys and navigating intimate touch.
Compass researcher Sarah Korte, Madeleine Stewart and series producer Kim Akhurst on location filming Intimate Access. (ABC: Morgan Timms)
Our storyteller scholarship
The IDPwD partnership also funds the ABC Storyteller Scholarship, an early-career program for two content creators with disability.
Scholarship winner and former Pararoos player Taylor Harvey will produce content on the health benefits of sport for regional communities, as well as an audio piece on visual communications for vision-impaired spectators.
Visual artist Mark du Potiers, also a Storyteller Scholar, is working with ABC News Queensland on an illustration-based digital Odyssey exploring the realities of living with ADHD.
Mark and his mentor, journalist Gemma Ferguson, will launch the ABC's International Day of People with Disability coverage by sharing their content across multiple platforms.
Their work unpacks lived experience and expert insights into ADHD, including task paralysis, rejection sensitive dysphoria and hyperfocus.
An illustration by Mark du Potiers that was used in his article for ADHD Awareness Month. (Supplied: Mark du Potiers)
Celebrating disability leadership
The ABC is proud to sponsor the Disability Leadership Institute's Disability Leadership Oration.
This year's speaker is Dwayne Fernandes, AstroAccess Flight 2 Ambassador, who aims to become the first double amputee in space.
The event will be held at Canberra's National Archive on November 24 and will air nationally on ABC Radio National's Big Ideas program on January 22.