Jess Kelly’s words have the power to move hearts and inspire change.
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She can spin stories that dance on the page and reverberate in your mind, and it was one of her personal stories that caught the attention of the ABC.
The Marian Catholic College student won the ABC’s Heywire competition, which invites young people to tell stories about their life in regional and rural Australia.
Jess’s story was about her exhausting battle with Type One diabetes - about the long hospital trips, the countless needles, and the misunderstanding of others.
The people she meets often don’t know the difference between Type Two diabetes, which can be related to poor lifestyle, and Type One diabetes, which isn’t.
They come with unsolicited advice about diet and exercise, not knowing that Type One diabetes has nothing to do with either.
But Jess always has the patience to help her friends and community understand her condition better.
“Better understanding around Type One diabetes would help people in regional areas with the disease feel understood rather than erased in the shadow of people’s assumptions,” she said.
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Her story blew away the ABC judges, who invited her over to a summit in Canberra with the other Heywire winners.
Over the five day summit she teamed up with other students to come up with an idea to change the world for the better.
Her team came up with an “Ask Away Program”, a day of the year when people are encouraged to ask questions to people from minority groups.
“If we all have the curiosity to learn about others, we don’t have to make assumptions about them or discriminate because of those assumptions,” Jess said.
As someone who belongs to the tiny minority of Type One diabetes sufferers, she knows how it feels to have to dispel other people’s assumptions.
For that reason she wants to learn more about other people from other minority groups and the obstacles they face in their lives.
She hopes that one day we can live in a world where we all make a greater effort to understand one another.
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Kenji Sato
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
