Take Timeout For Awards Video
It’s highly recommended to take a break from the Christmas shopping and festivities and take in the hours highlights of this year’s Attitude Awards. The video appears on the Attitude website www.attitudelive.com and it’s definitely a worthwhile watch. As per usual the evening event, which was hosted by TV one presenter Simon Dallow, is full of quality entertainment and surprises.
One of the surprises from a CP point of view is to witness Gary Williams become the latest inductee for the Attitude Hall of Fame. Gary was part of the NZ delegation team that negotiated the UN convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the UN the delegation team received a five minute standing ovation. In his acceptance speech Gary revealed that it was his ambition to lay a good foundation for future generations. Ambition accomplished Gary.
Another highlight of the night was 16-years-old, Muskan Devta who won the Attitude Youth Award and became the winner of the Supreme Winner award. As her bio states Muskan was born prematurely in her home country of India. As a result, she has a condition called partial hemiplegia, At school she broke out of her shy shell and became class captain, a roving reporter for the school newsletter and had her own radio show on popular Hindi station Radio Tarana. Then in 2013 Muskan published her first autobiography, I Dream, to raise money for Starship Children’s Hospital where she underwent corrective surgery. When she turned 15 last year, she donated $500 of her birthday money to support the Breakfast Club, a programme providing breakfast for low decile schools in Auckland. Her selflessness has only grown stronger over the years and her goals are bigger and more ambitious. She is currently raising funds to build two classrooms at a school for blind children in India. Muskan is a truly remarkable young lady.
The evening began with the uplifting world live premier of Long White Cloud. The song, which was written especially for World Disability Day, set the tone for an upbeat kind of night.
Perhaps the winner of Attitude Artistic Achievement award Salem Foxx captured the emotion of the night nicely when he said
“His aspergers is not so much a disability but an ability because it helps me think outside the square and this really comes out in my dancing.”
Ross Flood