Media (and Fashion!) is for Every Body

By Amy Saffell

Amy Saffell (bottom right) armed with GoPro & crew

People with disabilities are significantly underrepresented in the media, both on camera and in media jobs behind the scenes. In Nashville, through a partnership with the adaptive sports and independence nonprofit ABLE Youth (www.ableyouth.org) and Nashville Education, Community and Arts Television Network (NECAT) (www.necatnetwork.org), change is happening! NECAT, a public access television station, has so far trained about a half dozen of ABLE Youth's teenagers and the Executive Director to run everything in the studio, from cameras to floor directing to technical directing to audio to sets and lighting to being on camera and are now television producers with the public access station.

In the control room.

They have begun creating shows that air on NECAT and that can be picked up by other networks and entities across the globe under the name ABLE Youth Presents. While you'll likely see people with disabilities on camera in the series, there are a host of other people with disabilities behind the scenes making the show possible.

Working the camera while Amy conducts an interview.

Many of the ABLE Youth film crew's have been in the studio, but thanks to head-mounted GoPros, crew members who are wheelchair users can film outside of the studio and still have their hands free to move their chairs to capture action. Boundless 2018 was the crew's first project using the GoPros.

The first full episode's guest is Alicia Searcy, Executive Director of "Fashion Is For Every Body" and the founder of Boundless, an annual inclusive fashion show.

Alicia Searcy's grand entrance at Boundless!

In the episode, host and mobileWOMEN contributor, Amy Saffell and Alicia discuss why fashion and body positivity is important for people with disabilities, how "Fashion Is For Every Body" and Boundless were formed, and advice for people with disabilities who want to explore fashion for themselves but just don't know how to get started or who have for too long believed that fashion was off limits to people with disabilities.

Models of all abilities hit the runway.

You'll also see footage from this fall's Boundless Inclusive Fashion Runway Show.Watch here: