U-Beach makes shortlisting splash for Community Champion Award
Universal beach accessibility (U-BEACH) has been shortlisted for the Community Champion Award in Universities Australia's prestigious Shaping Australia Awards.
People's Choice voting is currently open with the finalists for the awards officially selected in January 2023 and the winners set to be revealed in February.
Led by CQUniversity researchers, Sasha Job, Steven Obst and Luke Heales, the U-Beach project has made significant contributions to regional communities by working to provide beach access to people of all abilities.
CQUniversity's inaugural U-Beach Community Beach Day was held in Bundaberg earlier this year and was attended by more than 250 people, with some participants enabled to experience the surf and sand for the first time in many years.
This work is now being adapted by communities in other parts of Australia to facilitate beach access by providing accessibility equipment and training for carers and volunteers.
The Shaping Australia Awards will help to celebrate these outstanding contributions that U-Beach has made to the community by recognising the team’s impact and efforts on a national platform.
Category finalists will be determined by the highest tally count across three categories (teaching, research and community service), and will receive $2,500 in prize money to help support their initiatives.
Transcript
We are here at Beach day out, so it's an all-inclusive beach day where we've got accessible mats and beach equipment so everyone can enjoy the beach
In Bundaberg this is our first ever event so we're pretty excited. It's been a few years in the making to get the equipment to build up our networks for our access Hub and so it's our first day in Bundaberg ever.
I cried a lot this morning just to see people freely coming onto the beach. The very first person to walk down the mat did so just with a little bit of support purely because the mat was here. She said she has MS and it's been a number of years, many years, since she's been to the beach and she used to swim every day and she was just overwhelmed with joy which just made me so proud of our community that we can just bring this joy to people's life and share the magic of the beach
I loved it I had two supporters. Scott from um surf Lifesavers and they do a fabulous job nine to five seven days a week along the coast here. I love it and talking to him gave me the opportunity to figure out how I might be able to do it at Kelly's Beach which is closer to my place
Clara from from CQU physios crew um helped me into the water and it was refreshing and I just had to get down. I had some fear but I knew I had support so I got on my knees and and I got wet up to my sort of neck on waves and yeah it was refreshing, cool, liberating, freeing all of it.
You know everything is a case of being brave enough or feeling brave enough to try these things two years ago I went to Elliot heads took my poodle midwinter and got stuck in a quicksand hole and I haven't been back since. About five years ago I went to Archie's Beach and fell and had to crawl up to a post to get myself off and that that was about five years ago so it's been a long time and I used to love the salt water.
So we know that in our region, around one in five people have disability and fifty percent of those people have told us they can't access the beach we definitely have surveyed our community to understand what the the challenges they face are and we've really looked at solutions to overcome the challenges that you know people with disability have told us exist here so I'm hoping that anyone who wants to access the beach can do so.
Some of the key challenges people face are moving through the soft sand and a lack of Mobility equipment. Another challenge people have in getting to the beach is
they sometimes don't have the support required because of these needs for equipment.
So we've got CQUPhysio and OT students volunteering their time to assist with hoist transfers and transfers to the equipment and helping people just engage in the activities on the beach. The key people involved in organising the event is CQUniversity Physiotherapy and occupational therapy on the Bundaberg campus. We've got ILS, we've got regional health and Mobility, we've got rise up support Partners we've got rotary popping on our sausage Sizzle today, we've also had some support from Queensland computers for a fundraising raffle to get the community a floating wheelchair and we've also got some support from Council.
CQU Lecturer in neurological physiotherapy and Board member for Accessible Beaches Australia, Sasha Job said the U-Beach team was grateful to be shortlisted and for the opportunity to share their learnings, inspire positive change, and advocate for universal beach access.
“U-Beach is not just a project; it's a movement towards inclusivity and accessibility.
“What started as a local initiative has evolved into a blueprint for communities across Australia,” she said.
“We are proud to see our work being adapted and replicated, making beaches more accessible nationwide.
“The Shaping Australia Awards provide a platform to share our learnings and inspire positive change."
With an additional two U-Beach Community Beach Day events planned in Bundaberg for 2024, Ms Job said the prize money would go a long way in supporting advocacy, training programs and specialised infrastructure and equipment and for these inclusive beach days.
