Michelle's Story | More stories

Michelle's Story

Michelle Wilcox was recently chosen as one of six students to star in a program created by Video Education Australasia. The production takes an observational look at the lives of Year 12 students. The teenagers were carefully selected as a representative sample of Australian students for 2002, with future filming planned every three years to record their development and explore how they imagine their future may unfold.

Like most 18 year olds, Michelle has dreams for the future. She aspires to be independent, to travel and attend university to study Clinical Psychology. Michelle has Cerebral Palsy, which effects her speech and movements.

"It makes me really angry when people speak to me like a baby, and treat me like I don't know anything." Michelle says. "I don't like the sympathy stares or when little kids look at me like a freak. It is pretty frustrating at times."

Throughout her life Michelle has used the services of the former Spastic Society, and currently benefits from Scope's physiotherapy program. She has thought of asking if Scope could assist with the formation of a weekend group or drop-in centre for teenagers like herself who have disabilities. "It would be somewhere to meet up with like-minded people of my age that face similar issues to myself. Maybe we could even revolve it around a retail concept where we could sell things too?"

Michelle was very excited when Scope's Communications department relayed producer Richard Leigh's invitation to be involved with the educational video project, which will be viewed in schools throughout Australia. Filming, completed in June, was designed to capture the students 'being themselves' and doing things they enjoyed. Richard interviewed Michelle twice and filmed Michelle in her home environment, partaking in her passion of swimming, and celebrating her 18th birthday

"I really hope that through the footage I can teach the community about people with disabilities," says Michelle. "Just because we have Cerebral Palsy, doesn't mean we can't have a fulfilling life. I really want to go after my goals and achieve my dreams. I don't want to spend my life relying on other people to do things for me. We only live once, so therefore why not do every thing we want to do?"

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