Katie Kelly is a two times Paralympian, 2x World Champion, Disability and LGBTQIA+ Advocate. She was the first Australian to win the Gold medal in Para-triathlon. Katie won the two World Championships in Chicago 2015 and Rotterdam 2017 and retired from High Performance after the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
In 2017, Katie established Sport Access Foundation, providing grants for young Australians living with a disability to improve their access to sport. The Foundation has provided over $86,000 in grants.
Katie is a Non-Executive Director for Achieve Australia, an Industry Fellow with Griffith University’s Disability Inclusive Council, a co-Patron of the Australian Deaf Games, and is a Facilitator for a Victoria University Sport Inclusion Project. Katie works as the Disability Engagement Manager for MEGT, an NFP providing apprenticeship and employment services.
Through her own journey of finding the richness and growth of living with a degenerative Deaf and Blind condition brings to her life, Katie seeks to empower and encourage the community to advocate for those with diverse needs.
"By creating opportunities in our communities for people living with disability to be included, we open ourselves to new experiences and challenge our perceptions of what it means to live with disability."
An extremely rare genetic disorder that Is a leading cause of deafblindness and is at present incurable.
Hearing loss leading to deafness, loss of vision leading to blindness as well as balance problems and speech difficulties.
Approx 3% to 6% of all children who are deaf and another 3% to 6% of children who are hard-of-hearing have Usher Syndrome.
In developed countries such as the United States and Australia about 4:100,000 births have Usher Syndrome.
