Award spotlight shines on junior star

October 30, 2014

Award spotlight shines on junior star

Oceana Olsen may not be as tall as the average 11-year-old, but what she lacks in height she makes up for with her huge singing voice and stage presence.

The talented Christchurch youngster is a finalist in the Junior Award category in the 2014 Attitude Awards. The national awards celebrate the excellence and achievements of Kiwis with a disability.

Oceana was born with Pseudoachondroplasia, an inherited type of dwarfism which affects bone growth. Apart from having a smaller stature, her condition causes leg pain and when it gets too much she requires a wheelchair.

Needing operations to ensure the bones in her legs grow straight, Oceana has already had five surgeries with each requiring months of recovery time wearing casts and intensive rehabilitation.

Despite the challenges of her condition, Oceana remains positive and gains strength through performing. She placed fourth in last year’s series of TV One’s ‘New Zealand’s Got Talent’ and since then she has performed at many events and charity functions, made appearances on shows like ‘What Now’ and is working on her first single.

"I started singing when I was four and I just sort of grew up around singing and music... I think God gave me a gift to sing and I want to use it and sing for other people," she says.

Oceana’s positive attitude has motivated more than 12,000 people to follow her on social media where she posts positive messages of self-love, anti-bullying and accepting diversity.

When she’s not posting or performing, Oceana is a student at Woolston School in Christchurch, where she studies Te Reo Maori. She also loves fashion and is known for her avant-garde hairstyles.

Oceana dreams of becoming a world-class singer and songwriter and to use her talent to spread the positive message: ‘you are beautiful no matter how you were born.’

Ocean will find out if she will take the stage as an Attitude Award winner at a gala dinner on World Disability Day, December 3 at Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre.

There are eight categories in the 2014 Attitude Awards: Sport Performer of the Year, Courage in Sport, Artistic Achievement, Youth, Spirit of Attitude, the Attitude ACC Employer Award, Making a Difference Award and the inaugural Attitude Junior Award. The overall winner of the Attitude ACC Supreme Award is selected from the category winners and a People’s Choice winner and a Hall of Fame inductee are also announced on the night.

Attitude Awards Trustee Dan Buckingham, a member of the elite national wheelchair rugby team the Wheel Blacks, says: “This is such an exciting time for everyone at Attitude Pictures because we find out who the finalists are. We have started travelling the country to film the finalists and even though this is the seventh year, their stories continue to amaze us.”

Dan encourages everyone to visit AttitudeLive.com, an innovative web platform created by Attitude Pictures, in early November to see the short films of the finalists and to vote for the person most deserving of the coveted ‘People’s Choice Award.’

The Junior Award is sponsored by Barfoot & Thompson. Other sponsors supporting the awards include: Invacare, Westpac, IHC Foundation, Drake Medox, Ministry of Health, Air New Zealand and Wayne Francis Charitable Trust.

Chief Executive of ACC Scott Pickering says ACC is proud to be principal sponsor of the awards for the seventh year, including sponsorship of the Attitude ACC Employer Award and the Attitude ACC Supreme Award.

"I'm really looking forward to this year's Attitude Awards, which are a significant event on New Zealand's calendar. Through celebrating excellence in the disability community and the important contributions made by New Zealanders with disabilities, the awards have the power to shift perceptions and to enhance lives."

For tickets to the Attitude Awards gala evening on Dec 3 contact Sue Wales-Earl at sue@attitudeawards.org
For all the latest on the Awards and the Attitude Programme:
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Watch previous awards footage at www.attitudelive.com

ENDS

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