A Bishopton beauty queen has been nominated as a disability hero in this year’s National Diversity Awards.
Mum-of-three Sarah-Victoria Bayley is noted for her campaign to be declared Ms Great Britain, in which she aimed to promote body positivity for models of all shapes, sizes, abilities, and disabilities.
The 40-year-old is now seeking support from her fellow Renfrewshire residents as she vies to win the Positive Role Model Award for Disability.
“Winning this award would mean the world to me,” said Sarah-Victoria, who has been diagnosed with 38 different medical conditions.
Not a day has gone by in the past 10 years that she has not felt pain. She has had to deal with fibromyalgia, B12 deficiency, Circadian rhythm sleep disorder and anxiety problems among others. Her conditions mean that she has to use a wheelchair when outside or travelling long distances.
Sarah-Victoria has sought to use her life experiences to encourage confidence in others dealing with disabilities, saying, “disabled children need to see that there are others like them out there and others who can inspire them”.
She was the first disabled/wheelchair user that had been a contestant for the prestigious Ms Great Britain awards and says she wants people that look like her to feel that they too can achieve in the media industry.
Sarah-Victoria told the Paisley Daily Express: “Being nominated for a National Diversity Award is both an honour and a privilege.
“If I were to win I could gain more traction to help educate others on both visible and semi-visible/invisible disabilities and hopefully support more people. I want to move on to advocating for more disabled people in the mainstream media, such as television shows, etc, and this would be a great stepping stone.
“It is important that disabled people are ‘normalised’ and shown for who we really are. At the moment most media, television, models who are disabled have it based around that fact, for instance The Undateables, and we need to see more people in everyday contexts, for instance a character on Coronation Street, where their disability is not the main storyline and is just an everyday occurrence.
“I would appreciate any votes the local community can give me to help me with my advocacy.”
The National Diversity Awards were created in 2012 with the aim of promoting more positive role models to empower and inspire diverse communities across the UK.
Voting for the awards closes on Friday, May 12 after which point, judges will assess each nominee’s case for a variety of awards.
To vote for Sarah-Victoria, go to nationaldiversityawards.co.uk/awards-2023/nominations/sarah-victoria-bayley/
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