Champion rower Rob Waddell celebrated the launch of a new surf programme for young, disabled Kiwis at Auckland's Mission Bay yesterday.

The evolutionary biologist and philosopher Richard Dawkins created a Twitterstorm this week when he posted about a young woman in Ireland who was forced to give birth to a baby conceived through rape.

Cerise Lawn says pregnant women must speak up when things don't look right, after signs of distress were overlooked and her baby was left struggling with disabilities from a damaged brain.

The details of a surrogacy case involving an Australian couple commissioning a pregnancy in Thailand have created outrage in all sorts of quarters.

Jared and Sarah Chisnall watched their eldest daughter deteriorate from a healthy 2-year-old to a brain-damaged 7-year-old. Now their son has the same condition.

A group of primary school children have solved a problem that our biggest bank couldn't solve - finding a way to let disabled people into its downtown Auckland branch.

The Australian man at the centre of a surrogacy scandal involving a disabled baby is reported to have spent time in jail for indecent assault.

On Tuesday night Philip Patston went to Parliament to collect the inaugural Arts Access Accolade.

A New Zealand manufacturer who adapts cars for wheelchair users says he has been forced to go overseas after officials here banned his design.

Wheelchair users who can't get into a new bank branch in downtown Auckland say its inaccessible design makes New Zealand look like a "Third World" country.

A New Zealand academic is living her own high-seas adventure tale, dodging flying fish and fending off squid during a 4000km row across the Pacific Ocean.

Community Spirit category: When Earlwyn Uncles' son was injured in a car accident and began playing wheelchair rugby, so too began Mr Uncles' involvement in the sport.

Even in Brazil where football is a religion, the miraculous sight of wheelchair-bound fans leaping from their seats has prompted calls for a police investigation into claims of ticket fraud.

Being accepted by her peers has been something a young Auckland teenager has always wanted.

Danielle Wright connects with a group of special children getting active on horseback.

A taxpayer-funded South Auckland disability support provider which received $30 million last year is investigating its own accounts.

Disabled athlete Daniel Holt had only just found his sporting niche in the swimming pool when it was ripped away from him.

Some people choose to make changes in their life, sometimes personal, others are work related. For other people, though, that change is forced on them.

If things went really well, Sionann Murphy was expected to be able to walk one day. She would certainly never run, much less do a triathlon.

Last night was the 10th birthday of the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre in Grey Lynn at Galatos Bar in Auckland.

A senior nurse who roughly undressed an elderly mental health patient, made derogatory comments about her, left her sitting naked in a bath and kneed her in her back has been fined nearly $30,000.

There are dogs that see for the blind and those that hear for the deaf - but for the first time in New Zealand young pups are being trained to assist people with severe epilepsy.

An Auckland mother says she is subjected to abuse and insults by elderly strangers for using mobility parks because her brain-damaged son "doesn't look disabled".

Child care law changes sought by lobby group after children denied right to family life.

An intellectually disabled teenager has lost a Supreme Court battle for a share in his stepfather's $2.2 million estate because he was unborn when his mother married.

Thousands of people may be ending up on the wrong side of the law due to an alcohol-related brain disability caused before birth, a New Zealand judge says.