A KARIONG woman has been announced as an ambassador for the Australian Government’s International Day of People with Disability campaign.

Maree Jenner lives with dwarfism and has spent her life pushing boundaries to challenge the perceptions as to what she is capable of.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing is aiming to raise awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.

When Maree Jenner was a child, society just didn’t know how to treat her.

From being told she could never be a nurse as she was too short to being filmed while out and about – Maree openly challenges societal ‘norms’ everyday and her lived experience has been her biggest superpower.

Now Maree runs Inclusion Awareness programs in schools to encourage the next generation to be changemakers and the champions of tomorrow when it comes to inclusion. “I want these kids to see that she’s small but she’s done a lot and it hasn’t stopped her,” she says.

The school programs can make a huge difference to the lives of children living with disabilities - with Maree saying it is so powerful to see what some children with disabilities, particularly with Dwarfism like her, can do today that she didn’t have the means to do back in the 1960s.

Maree is an Ambassador for IDPwD 2025 in partnership with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

IDPwD is a United Nations observed day held annually on December 3, aimed at raising awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.