When the 2010 Winter Paralympics begin in Vancouver two years from today, Grace Brulotte hopes to roll in with the athletes, a camera fixed to her wheelchair, a keyboard at the ready with which to write stories.
Brulotte, 12, is one of more than 40 B.C. students with disabilities who are applying for special journalist accreditations to cover the Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics for local media.
The arrangement is part of an unusual program announced Tuesday by 2010 Legacies Now, Special Education Technology (SET) and 3M, which are funding a two-year, $200,000 "Virtual Voices Village" project to teach children with disabilities how to write and post their interviews online.
The announcement coincides with a number of activities organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee to mark the two-year countdown to the Paralympics. Today, Paralympian Todd Nicholson, a member of the gold-medal Canadian sledge hockey team, will be at Trout Lake Community Centre to show school children how disabled athletes use their sporting equipment. And in Whistler, there will be an afternoon party at the public library.
Brulotte and several other students have already posted their work to the Virtual Voices Village website, www.virtualvoicesvillage.org).
Under the new program, Grade 11 and 12 students who complete the course will be eligible for a select number of journalist accreditation passes, which the Vancouver Organizing Committee has agreed to supply.
Brulotte, a Grade 6 student at Isabella Dicken elementary school in Fernie, is hoping her efforts and the fact she has already covered wheelchair basketball at the B.C. Winter Games in Kimberley will get her around those rules so that she can win one of the Olympic or Paralympic journalist spots. She said she's interested in covering figure skating.
Brulotte was born with Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rare congenital disorder that contracts and twists the body's joints. She uses a motorized wheelchair, and has limited use of her arms.
For her assignment during the provincial games, she used a trigger-driven camera mounted on one side of her wheelchair, and typed her story on to a keyboard with a pencil eraser.
Brulotte she's already developed a bit of a reporter's instinct; she's noticed and wants to write about how she can't get into many of the stores in Fernie because of steps, and the new local park paths have been laid with sawdust that bogs down her wheelchair.
The village voices project was announced in Vancouver by Brenda Le Clair, the managing director of Legacies Now, a non-profit group that was formed out of Vancouver's award of the 2010 Games.
"Participating students are going to have an opportunity to develop writing and journalism skills by interviewing athletes and other community role models," she said.
The students will be mentored by print and broadcast journalists, and their work will be sent to community newspapers, radio stations and television broadcasters, Le Clair said.
There are about 2,800 school-aged children with disabilities in B.C., according to Joe Cash, a director with SET, a Ministry of Education program that works with school districts to provide assistive technology for disabled children.
Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, March 11, 2008
