My sister’s disability changed everything I thought I wanted
Alyssa Chhim-Michelle grew up in a Cambodian Australian family shaped by her parents’ escape from genocide. When she learned her father carried a rare genetic condition, she faced an impossible choice about her own future. Now as her sister’s caregiver, she confronts the gap between family duty and the life she wants to build. Alyssa […]
Disability, Resilience & Real Stories | Golden Threads Podcast Trailer
Across Australia, powerful stories of disability, resilience, and lived experience often go unheard. Golden Threads is a Kintsugi Heroes podcast hosted by Daniel Dougherty, sharing honest, deeply human conversations with people navigating disability, identity, and inclusion. This series explores what it really means to adapt, persevere, and live fully in a world still learning what […]
What I Do While I Can Walk | Alyssa Chhim-Michelle | Golden Threads
What I do while I can walk Alyssa grew up in a Cambodian Australian family shaped by her parents’ escape from genocide. In high school, she learned her father and sister carried the spinocerebellar ataxia gene. After years of uncertainty, she found courage to test for the gene herself through a partner’s unconditional support in […]
Beyond the Label: How I Learned to See the Person, Not the Disability
Stories about growing up with disability, mental health, and what it means to see the person first. Sally Pymer was diagnosed with chronic lung disease at 19, told she’d have emphysema by 40, and spent decades running from that truth. But growing up with her brother’s severe disabilities taught her something the world forgot: how […]
Just Say Hello First | Leanne Watson | Kintsugi Heroes Shorts
The most inclusive thing you can do for someone with a disability is also the simplest — just say hello. Leanne Watson lives with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and has spent years navigating well-meaning but unhelpful interactions. In this clip she breaks down the practical, everyday ways you can include someone — without assumptions, without […]
I Didn’t Ask for Your Prayers | Leanne Watson | Kintsugi Heroes Shorts
A stranger walked up and started praying over her — without asking, without warning. Leanne Watson lives with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and has experienced her share of well-intentioned but deeply awkward moments in public. This clip captures one of the most striking: being approached in a hotel foyer and having someone pray over her […]
Twenty years numb: Karl Germann on complex trauma, queerness, and finding himself at 46 | Pride I…
The 20-year fog Karl grew up in apartheid South Africa in a wealthy but emotionally distant Austrian-South African family, experiencing what he now understands as complex trauma rooted in his mother’s narcissism and his father’s clinical detachment. For decades he dissociated, unaware he was queer until his late twenties when he met a partner and […]
Ian Harvey: Unlocking Experiences and Rewriting What’s Possible in Disability
SUMMARY A diving accident on a Boxing Day cricket trip changed everything — for an 18-year-old named Jason, and for Ian Harvey, the young rugby coach standing beside him. In this episode of Golden Threads, host Daniel Dougherty sits down with Ian — National Foundation Manager for the WhatAbility Foundation in Perth — to trace […]
A Life in Three Acts with Muscular Dystrophy | Leanne Watson | Golden Threads | Kintsugi Heroes
In this moving episode of Golden Threads: Stories of Disability and Resilience, host Daniel Dougherty shares an intimate conversation with Leanne Watson, a remarkable woman living with limb girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD). Leanne opens up about her life journey, from a privileged upbringing in Melbourne to the gradual physical challenges posed by her diagnosis. This […]
Why Disability Inclusion Starts With One Simple Question
Disability inclusion and leadership. Eighteen years ago, Cathy Hockey stepped into an employment program for people with intellectual disabilities with no experience in the field. A simple tool, a one-page profile capturing what each person valued and how to support them, became the foundation for everything: hiring, team-building, and later her entire coaching practice. ⚠️ […]