Georgia Ryan is a Year 10 student from Port Macquarie, NSW. She was officially diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia in Year 6 after her parents had her assessed after several years of struggling at school. Since that time, she has devoted many hours to expanding her knowledge about her learning disabilities. Georgia wants to not only advocate for people who have differences in their thinking and learning abilities but to normalise the way we view learning differences and to help other young people to see their dyslexia in a more positive way. She would like to spread as much awareness as she possibly can.
On her advocacy journey, she has already accomplished the following:
- Georgia published her article in the May 2021 issue of Dystinct Magazine.
- In 2017, Georgia won the Young Australian Writers’ Award in Poetry.
- In 2018, she started a nationwide petition to try and have a core module on learning differences introduced into every pre-service teaching degree and to change the way pre-service teachers are taught how to teach reading. She has written personally to university vice chancellors and has met with The Hon. Leslie Williams MP who has supported her on this mission.
- She has been the Dyslexia Mid North Coast Youth Ambassador for the past three years.
- In conjunction with Dyslexia Mid North Coast, she has run an assistive technology workshop for students, parents and teachers and released a handbook to help students with dyslexia in their transition from Primary school to High school.
- She has been recognised twice in NSW parliament for her advocacy efforts.
- She has been a guest on the “Talking Youth” podcast where she discussed her dyslexia and dysgraphia.
- Georgia has been interviewed and had articles published in the Real Pretty Kind Changemakers issue, Port News and Education HQ Magazine. She was also described in an article by writer Cat Rodie as a “Dyslexic Warrior”. She has also recently contributed a three part article to the Nessy blog.
- One of her social media posts was used in the book “7 Steps to Get Your Child Reading” by Louise Park
- She was recently featured in a poster of “Successful Australian Women with Dyslexia”.
- Her “Dyslexia” YouTube clip has had over 39,000 views.
- Her social media accounts have a community of almost 4,000 people and continues to grow.
- She was recently the keynote speaker at the 2021 launch of the Luminosity Youth Summit.
- She has spoken at several events and looks forward to getting her community on board in even greater numbers to support this year’s GoRed campaign.
This is only the start of her journey and she is very excited to promote even more awareness about these important topics.
