By Luke Voogt
Bell Post Hill’s Annaliese Bishop was one of six locals to win at the Geelong Awards for People with Disability on Tuesday.
The 39-year-old attended a ceremony at Geelong Library with partner Adam Szocs and mother-in-law Sue.
“I was trying not to look at them because I was about to burst into tears I was so happy,” she said.
“(Sue) had a tear. She told me in the car.”
Annaliese won the Sport and Recreation award for teaching free yoga classes for children on the autism spectrum.
The Kiwi expat, who was diagnosed with autism in 2008, said teaching any class of children was “a bit of a challenge”.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. (With autistic children) you have to have that extra level of awareness to manage their individual sensory issues.”
For example, she said, some of her students might not like the texture of the yoga mat, the colour pink or the smell of lavender.
Annaliese also teaches low cost classes for adults.
“Most of my students are carrying injuries, chronic medical conditions or long term illnesses,” she said.
“As far as I’m aware I’m the only autistic yoga teacher in Australia – or maybe even the world. But you’d want to hope there’s more.”
Annaliese took yoga classes at age 18 to help with job stress.
“It gave me an opportunity to get out of my head for an hour,” she said.
She was a personal trainer for several years before becoming a banker.
“I’ve got a number of health conditions and I’ve had a lot of injuries over the years, many of which yoga has, hopefully, kept at bay.”
This year’s honours went to Simone Stevens for Volunteering, Nicci Wall for Leadership and Advocacy, Ryan Schmidtke for Achievement and Michael Chan for Arts, while Chloe Hayden won Young Achiever.
The Karingal St Laurence and City of Greater Geelong driven awards recognise the achievements of local people with a disability.
“The experience and talent we have here in Geelong is tremendous and should be recognised,” said City Hall administrator Doctor Kathy Alexander.
