Interview Highlight: Liz Tesone - Disability Sports and Recreation

Sam speaks to CEO of Disability Sport and Recreation Victoria, Liz Tesone, about the upcoming Disability Sport and Recreation Festival taking place at Crown Riverwalk on Friday 5 December.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:13):
Liz, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you very much for
your time.

S2 (00:18):
Thank you for having me.

S1 (00:19):
Now, Liz, we're here to talk about the upcoming Disability
Sport and Recreation Festival coming up in just a few
weeks time. Tell us a little bit about the festival.

S2 (00:33):
Yeah. So the festival has been running since 2010, with
the main purpose to celebrate Melbourne's diversity and encouraging people
of all abilities to get active by showing them what
opportunities they are. So once again, we'll be held on
the first Friday in December, which is Friday the fifth.

(00:54):
It will be from 10 to 2 p.m. on Crown
River walk. There's a number of accessible ways of attending
the festival, and we've got them all outlined on our
website and can provide more information. And unfortunately, we had
to cancel it last year due to construction work, so
we've got huge interest this year and fingers crossed, if

(01:17):
the weather holds out, we're expecting it to be bigger
and better than ever.

S1 (01:21):
That's right. Well, hopefully the weather does pick up. It's
been a bit dark and cold and wet here in Melbourne,
so hopefully things do turn around. So yeah, fingers crossed
there for sure. Now, Liz, what can people expect if
they had along to the festival? What can they get
involved with and check out there?

S2 (01:42):
So the festival again will be a great example of
bringing our community together and showing people what's possible. So
we've got a record number of exhibitors with a lot
of interactive sessions as well, so people can get involved
in various sporting activities and sample things that are set up.
There's a great passport opportunity for children and attendees so

(02:04):
they can go around to each stallholder and get a stamp,
and at the end there's an awesome showbag. We've once
again got DJ Cooper on the decks, so he'll be
spinning music for us. And of course, we align with
the flame of Hope lighting of the cauldron, which is
at the finish point of the law Enforcement Torch run.
So we're looking forward to seeing that the great gathering

(02:27):
they get.

S1 (02:28):
Let's have a bit of a chat about some of
the other work that DSR has been doing over the
past year or two. Tell us a bit about the
projects there that they've been involved with.

S2 (02:42):
Yeah, so I've probably got five key things to recap
on on this year. And a lot of them are
continuing into next year as well. So it's kind of
reflecting backwards but looking forwards as to what work we're
going to continue. So we've got our DSR annual awards,
which were held in October at the iconic MCG, and

(03:02):
the awards continue to grow once again. We saw record
number of nominations and record number of attendees, so we
had over 230 attendees. But what we're so excited about
is the depth across the community and the winners of
who they represented. The diversity was unbelievable and it grows

(03:22):
year on year. But basically, the awards are an opportunity
to celebrate the absolute incredible athletes, the volunteers, officials, administrators,
clubs and venues and programs that enable people with a
disability and empower them to get active and achieve their goals.
So it's really an inspirational night. We hear lots of

(03:44):
great stories and we'll continue back on that again next
year in October. Approximately date to be confirmed, but if
you can get along, it's a really signature event of ours.
And then in January this year, we were granted a
all abilities, workforce and sector support program through the Victorian

(04:05):
state government. And it's really our role in that. So
we're one of the two key roles. Lead roles is
to design and deliver an online learning and development hub,
which will be known as The Hub. And it's really
a transformative step forward for disability inclusion in sport and
recreation across regional Victoria. So this focuses on the workforce.

(04:28):
So both collaborating with people with disability to either work
or volunteer in the sport and recreation sector, but also
for people to run activities for people with disabilities. So
it is focusing on regional area. But a lot of
the information that will be on the hub will be
transferable across all of Victoria. And we're working with key
partners in Victoria University, the inspire Group and train you.

(04:53):
And there's a lot of co-design with people with disability
industry leaders from regional Victoria. So that will be launched
early next year. And we're really excited about that initiative. And,
you know, some funding that will come for opportunities for
people to run programs in regional areas. The other one

(05:14):
I will move on to is a local government area.
We call it LGA. So Local Government Area Connect and
again it's funded through um the together more Active grant.
And it's basically to increase participation in sport and recreation.
So we saw a real barrier was a lack of
skilled human capital at a local government level, which was

(05:37):
really hindering the effective planning and delivering. So we worked,
we did research, we did co-design. We identified six key
areas that can really help improve this human capacity and
human capital at a local government area, so they can
have lasting impact within their local community. So there's really

(05:58):
exciting information available. It's about to go live shortly. We
worked closely with three local government areas being Latrobe, Manningham
and Bayside Council, and it's ready to go out to
the broader councils to utilize and really grow their capacity.
And then we'll move on to our education program. So
our signature we'll talk program is our inclusion education program,

(06:22):
where active Victorians with disabilities share their stories and their
experience of inclusion in sport and the power of wheelchair sports.
So this year we've actually grown by 12%. We've been
in over 150 schools, over 400 sessions delivered and over
10,000 students. So that's really exciting. And we've actually moved

(06:45):
into our regional We'll Talk program, which we've travelled across Gippsland,
Northern Victoria and Barwon South West region, and we've seen
over 1600 students from Prep to Year 12 and over
25 schools. So that's going to continue to be funded
for another couple of years by the Department of Education
Strategic Partnership program. and probably the last one to mention

(07:09):
is our wheelchair rugby, which has continued to grow and
strengthen pathways for athletes throughout the 2025 year through four
key programs, and that is the Wheelchair Rugby National League.
So we run a let's call it a State of
origin in Melbourne where we had huge numbers attend again,
record numbers. We've got the Wheelchair Rugby National Championships, which

(07:30):
were held in Adelaide earlier this year, and then we've
got our weekly local competition which is supported by protect,
and we can't forget our junior wheelchair rugby development program.
So that's really exciting. That's going from strength to strength.
We've entered a partnership with Wheelchair Rugby Australia, so looking
forward to seeing that in the new year. And I

(07:51):
suppose just you know, 2 or 3 highlights stats for
DSR is that we are growing. So we've got 8000
members and we've got 15,000 social member followers and nearly
15,000 newsletter subscribers. So if you haven't subscribed or you
want to join us as a member, go to our website, npr.org.

(08:11):
So that's what we've been up to for 2025. And
many of those initiatives are continuing throughout 2026 as well.

S1 (08:19):
Perfect. So that's are you there now Liz having a
listen to all of those programs. And also this ties
in very well with the festival coming up. I'd love
to have a chat with you about the benefits of
sports and recreation for children living with disabilities. Now this

(08:43):
is a topic really close to our heart. And what
does it mean to you to, you know, see all
these programs coming to fruition and seeing in real time
the benefits that they can provide for the community?

S2 (08:57):
I'm really lucky because I get to see it from
a professional point of view, but also from a personal
lived experience view as well. I have a 14 year
old with very complex intellectual disability, and for us as
a family, it's really about our way of connecting with
community and connecting with family and connecting with friends. So

(09:17):
I am lucky. I see it on both sides of
of my world and very passionate about it. But you know,
we use the word sport and recreation, but you can
easily replace them with community and belonging. And that's what
we see sport and recreation is it's really about the
social side of things. It doesn't necessarily have to be
formal sport, it can be social side. It's about belonging

(09:39):
and it's about being involved and getting to know each other.
And of course, there's many health benefits involved with that,
from physical to mental health benefits. But we just encourage
everyone to get out there to look at the different
avenues available and see what really suits you.

S1 (09:56):
And Liz. Of course, the tie in with International Day
of People with disabilities, along with the Disability Sport and
Recreation Festival on the 5th of December. That's a super
special day and something really exciting for members of the

(10:16):
disability community more broadly. So what does it mean to
have that connection there and that real momentum and really
meaningful day?

S2 (10:26):
Well, International Day of Disability is really our chance to
highlight that there are still barriers that the disability community
experience with accessing sport and recreation. And, you know, traditionally
we've always looked at physical barriers, whether they be ramps
and so forth, but social barriers are just as much
a key part of that. So we want to highlight
that people with disability are less active than people that

(10:50):
don't have a disability. But it's not out of not
wanting to be. So 80% of people that are less
active want to be more more physically involved in sport
and recreation, but they're still facing barriers. So it's important
that we use that week. And we use that signature
day to really say, you know, there's great things going
on and we want to celebrate what's going on, but

(11:12):
we also want to highlight to the broader community that
there are still barriers and we still need to overcome things.
So it's a continual work in progress.

S1 (11:20):
Absolutely. And of course, if people would like to find
out a little bit more about the work disability, sport
and recreation is doing, or find out a bit more
about the festival, they can of course head to DSR.
But also Liz, if people would love to perhaps send

(11:42):
you an email or give you a call, what's the
best way for them to do that?

S2 (11:47):
Yeah. So email is info at DSR. That's the best
way to contact us and we'll be able to answer
any specific questions you have about any of our programs
and services or the festival. And we know that the
festival is so important to the disability community. With year
on year, over 85% say they want to attend and

(12:09):
they'll be back the next year. So we're really excited
about seeing the people return and just as excited about
seeing the new people coming down as well.

S1 (12:17):
Perfect. Okay, well, I've been speaking today with Liz Tassoni,
CEO of Disability Sport and Recreation, here to chat to
me all about the work she's been doing in 2025
and will continue on in years to come, but also

(12:38):
coming up to the Disability Sport and Recreation Festival on Friday,
the 5th of December, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
at Crown Riverwalk in Melbourne. Liz, thank you so much
for your time today. Great to have a chat with
you and find out all about the festival.

S2 (12:58):
Thank you for having me.