Emma Muldoon is a power wheelchair user with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. She is the founder and writer of her award winning accessible travel and disability blog, ‘Simply Emma’ where she shares her love of travel as well as highlighting the accessibility barriers disabled people face whilst travelling. Emma also uses her lived experiences to challenge public attitudes and misconceptions whilst helping create positive change for the disabled community. This is why Emma is a proud Scottish ambassador for ableMove as she is passionate about inclusion; enabling disabled people to live independent and exciting lifestyles safely and with dignity.

Claire Taggart is 26 years old and lives in Larne, Northern Ireland. Claire has been playing boccia for seven years, and has been on the Boccia UK World Class Programme for six years. Claire is currently ranked 10th globally in her classification individually, and with the team (BC1/2 Team) ranked 8th globally.

Claire has a neurological condition called dystonia, causing increased muscle tone and spasm, with contractures in all four limbs. The condition means Claire is a powerchair user, unable to stand to transfer or walk.

Manon van den Heuvel is a Dutch blogger and YouTuber. She blogs and creates videos about her life with a disability and hopes to inspire people with and without a disability to live life to the fullest!

When she was five years old, Manon was diagnosed with an Acquired Brain Injury after a car crash, damaging the part of the brain which deals with the mobility. Mobility controls almost all functions of the body, like movement, speech, breathing and balance. Everything in Manon’s case was a little damaged. Manon has been wheelchair bound since the crash. She also acquired a small cognitive disability, she deals with slower information transcripts, has difficulties concentrating, becomes easily overstimulated and as a result she also becomes tired quite quickly.

During her childhood Manon was determined to be able to do as much as possible. She went to a mainstream school and played with friends as well as attending regular rehabilitation therapies. She enjoyed primary and secondary school, but found it difficult to be different from the other kids sometimes.

At home Manon learned how to always have a positive attitude towards life. Because of her rehabilitation from such a young age, she developed great perseverance skills, using these everywhere she goes and with everything she does. Manon successfully completed a bachelor in Human Resource Management at a University of Applied Sciences and has previously worked as a recruitment consultant in a firm specialising in helping people with a (working) disability find employment.

Early in 2018 Manon decided to focus fulltime on her physical condition and lifestyle.

Manon now creates videos and blogs concerning life with a disability for her website and YouTube-channel. With the blogs, videos and all other social channels, she wants to inform other people how life with a disability can be. She also shares tips and tricks on how to make your life with a disability just a little easier and more fun. Manon wants to be an online-friend for other people with a disability and hopes that with her experiences she can give people inspiration, acknowledgement and support.

Sanna Kalmari is a travel blogger and accessible travel specialist from Finland. She is a power chair user with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Sanna started her travel blog ‘Palmuasema’ in spring 2011, after becoming frustrated about the lack of information available relating to accessible travel. Her blog started small but it quickly grew from a modest blog to a comprehensive information portal, becoming the key place in Finland to find inspiration, information and accessible travel packages for many disabled travelers. Sanna is also training travel professionals and students, along with other tourism experts about issues related to accessible tourism. Occasionally she works as a tour leader in accessible tours. She was nominated as a Travel Influencer of the Year in Finnish Travel Gala 2018 and was one of the three finalists.
Sanna loves to travel and she has visited many countries around the world. Her longest trip so far has been two months long around the world trip in 2016. Sanna travels everywhere with her ableMove ableSling and has been a huge help when flying, but Sanna also uses it in many winter and summer activities in Finland.

Ambassador profile/bio

Ambassador profile/bio