S1E6 - Interviews with Paula Jessop and Mark Cook

Paula Jessop is an autistic woman and autistic rights advocate. She lives in Tauranga with her cat. Paula has been involved with autism self-advocacy for many years in New Zealand. She was an integral part of guiding Altogether Autism to become a more inclusive organisation as their first Autistic advisor. She has played a role in shifting the language in the autism sector, along with promoting the importance of knowledge gained from lived experience. In systemic advocacy Paula tends to be the ‘disrupter’ who shakes up the status quo and at times she has acted as a ‘weaver’, connecting and supporting other autistic people embarking on self advocacy, in the belief that empowering others in our communities to have a ‘voice’, benefits us all. Paula continues to shift between social change roles and has an attitude that it’s worth trying anything, big or small, to see if it creates change.

Mark Cook Hello, my name is Mark I am 38-years old, I live in Bramhall, which is a suburb of Stockport in Greater Manchester. I live with my parents, Ann and Keith and I have an older brother called Peter who is a teacher in London. I went to mainstream school in Bramhall and then I went to college. After college I had a job with a training company as an administration assistant. I was there for eleven years until 2020 when I was made redundant due to the pandemic. I now have another job at a recruitment company in Manchester and I work there one day a week. I have been there for nearly a year and I am really enjoying it. On two other days I go to an animation workshop where I can create short cartoon style films and to a radio station where we research topics and discuss them. The recordings are then posted on the internet. Both of these activities are with an organisation called Pure Innovations. My hobbies are films, reading and listening to music and I love eating out. I have Down’s Syndrome and I am deaf in my right ear, but those things do not get in the way of me doing anything. During lockdown I began writing a film blog and I have carried on since then! The link to the blog is given below in case you are interested. https://mdcreviews.blog/

Podcast Chapters 00:00 Introduction - Disability Disrupters Podcast 00:20 Introduction to Podcast Guests - Paula and Mark 00:57 Advert - Disability Responsiveness New Zealand (DRNZ) 01:21 Interview with Paula Jessop 31:00 Dr Pam discussing goals 34:14 Podcast seeking contributions from Listeners 34:45 Dr Pam introduces Mark Cook 35:09 Interview with Mark Cook 46:27 Podcast Donations request - Tipjar 47:29 Goodbye from Dr Pam

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Podcast audio and transcript editor : Britta Offergeld

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