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My name is Vidar Hjardeng and I've been lucky enough for the last 25 years to work
in the media – television journalistic career ostensibly after a modern languages degree
and a post-graduate journalism degree.
I'm a journalist by training; I have run political, social action, current affairs programmes.
Most recently, I have had a senior management role within one of the big broadcasting
companies which focuses on the whole question of diversity, both in terms of what is contained
in editorial content and also reflecting the make-up of the workforce.
Looking back, my first job was a researcher and I was very lucky to get that
- lots of, I call it tenacity, other people might call it being a real nuisance and a real pest,
knocking on doors, ringing people up, this was just before emails became something of everyday culture
and I was lucky enough to get a job in a television company working on religious programming.
Over the past 25 years I have been lucky enough to be gainfully employed, I can honestly say
that there isn't any real instance of a barrier other than the fact that I think
we all of us, with or without a disabilities face, for example confidence, belief in yourself.
Yes there are some practical issues I guess about getting around logistically,
if like me you've got a visual impairment, and that's something you've got to take into consideration.
It might sound a bit airy-fairy and it might sound almost a bit sort of cheesy,
but my greatest achievement is to have pursued a career that I aspired to as a teenager
and as a student.
It's always a bit of a challenge to think about advising anybody about what they might
want to do but if, based on my experience, I was starting out again as a young person
who happens to have a disability, I would say be yourself, be very aware of what you
can do but also pragmatic about what you can't do - and if you can convince yourself of
your own ability then you have got a good chance of convincing other people.