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Diana Qian is Chinese-Australian.  She was born in China in 1974.  Diana acquired her disability at the age of 10 as a result of surgery.  And spent 2 years lying in a hospital bed for lack of a wheelchair.  She came to live in Australia in 1988 with her family which was precipitated by the offer of corrective surgery.  Which was successful to some degree – and there was also the luxury of having a wheelchair. Diana educated herself about her rights to participate and have an integrated education, despite attempts to exclude her by people using racist reasoning and who thought of her wheelchair as an intellectual barrier.  Her way of dealing with negative attitudes is to turn them into a driving force for activism in working towards a community that celebrates all aspects of humanity – including disability and ethnicity. Diana has a Bachelor of Social Ecology.  She is an advocate at People With Disabilities (NSW) Inc.  She is the Chairperson of the Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association (NSW) and the Secretary of the National Ethnic Disability Alliance. Diana has paraplegia and scoliosis.