Ciara's Pink Sparkle Podcast!

I interviewed Irish singer & Songwriter Gavin Friday who is also my lovely u2 family for my Podcast. We chatted about his own music career and his album Ecce Homo, we chatted about our Dublin connections, we talked about our u2 family connections & he told me about his creative consultant role with the band. We also chatted about what inspires us & angers us & he told me a story about my cousin Richard aka 'Dik' back in the Virgin Prunes days!

I chatted with Emma Steel from Every Cherry Publishing. She created an imprint that will help children with a disability to access reading and story books. I got involved with Every Cherry Publishing last year as they invited me to do an audio voice over for their version of my fave all time children's story, The Wizard of Oz and I got to read and record and channel ' My inner Dorothy! ' website : https://www.everycherry.com/

I chatted with my friend Mark Cutter aka The Man in the Purple Hat about our own lived experiences of having a disability, the differences between learning difficulty and learning disability, the medical model of learning disability & the social model of disability and what change we can make when we lobby for change. We also talked about our own work careers and what we do now and chatted about my Podcast too!

For this episode of my Podcast, I am joined for a chat by my lovely friend and actress Sally Phillips. She is currently starring in a wonderful new BBC Sitcom show called Austin which you can now watch on BBC I-Player! We chatted about the recent final Bridget Jones Movie Mad About the Boy & her character Shazza. We also chatted about the world of learning disability and why we need to see more people with a learning disability being seen positively in the media like TV and film & she talked about her own experience of becoming a mother to her son Olly who has Downs Syndrome and what he has achieved!

I chatted to Steve Lillywhite CBE who is a British Music Producer about his career working in the music industry as a music producer. He told me about when he worked with u2 on their singles and albums and how he got to work with other bands like The Rolling stones. I also told him about why I started my Podcast!

For this episode, I chatted with my lovely friend Hayley Newman & her wonderful daughter Natty who has Downs Syndrome. They chatted with me about their relationship as mum and daughter, we chatted about how important it is to see people with a disabiliy in the media like Natty and myself. We also talked about our favourite ice-cream flavours, chatted about the film Frozen and our favorite colours!

I chatted to my friend Shelley Simmonds about becoming a mum to her son Fraser who has a disability. we also talked abut why it is important that we have more role models in the media who have a disability and we talked about disability issues!

Happy Mother's day to all the mums out there today! I chatted with my lovely school mate Claire Scadden who is a lovely mum to Grace who was born with a pysical disability. Claire shared her pregnancy story with me and the good support she has a mum!

I chatted with Josh all about his career as a neurodivergent Screen Writer and abut how TV shows and dramas should hire more actors in front of the camera and behind the camera. We also talked about Disability and the importance of Representation!

I chatted with Consultant Learning Disability Nurse Jim Blair about the importance of the role that learning disability nurses do when they are supporting people with a learning disability with their healthcare in hospitals. We chatted about hospital passports & being on the learning disability register with your GP and why it's important for people with a learning disability to be on it. We also chatted about our Patron roles with the amazing inclusive dance charity Dance Syndrome.