The team at Nature Play WA was honoured to receive the award for Not-for-Profit/Community Organisation App of the Year for 2023 at last week’s Centre for Accessibility Australia‘s Australian Access Awards, for our app Talk N Walk.
When accepting the award, CEO Dr Kelsie Prabawa-Sear said, “At Nature Play WA, we’re all about kids, and through making our work and programs more accessible we’re providing an opportunity to take the work we’re doing to everybody. We’re relatively new to the inclusion and accessibility world, but what a space to be in – we’re never leaving. It’s an absolute delight to be here tonight, and we thank you for this award.”
Co-designed with 100 tween and teenage girls and young people from around WA, the app focuses on social connection, friendships, family and feeling good and has been developed to support young people to be more physically active and mentally healthy. We worked with VisAbility and Humaan to identify and implement best practice measures without compromising on design or functionality, to deliver a great user experience for all.
As Minister for Disability Services, Don Punch said when opening the event, “The awards are a fantastic channel for showcasing outstanding digital accessibility initiatives, and highlighting best practice, for the greater participation of people with disability. Our country is extremely lucky to have innovative organisations that are dedicated to ensuring people with disability can maximise their potential and participate as equal citizens in our community.”
Nature Play WA strives to create programs and resources to support all children and young people of Western Australia, and as a small organisation this award is a great honour, and we greatly appreciate the recognition of our work. We thank our partners in creating the Talk N Walk app, Healthway for seed funding, and Telethon7 for supporting our work in delivering digital accessibility.
Taking the advice of Senator Jordon Steele-John from his speech, as winners of this award we will “go and tell everyone that you know, about what you’ve won and why, and how you achieved it together. For it is only through shining a light on the pathway to accessibility that we can support others and encourage them to come along with us on that journey.”
Find out more about Talk N Walk.
