I’m Zahra Nawaz from Melbourne, Australia.
While I’m not chasing after my boys or cooking up a storm in the kitchen, I work with dyslexic and additional needs children. I’m an Orton Gillingham trained practitioner registered with the Australian Dyslexia Association. I’ve also undertaken advanced OG morphology and multisensory mathematics with Ron Yoshimoto. I’m a passionate advocate for children with dyslexia and additional needs. I trained to be a dentist and completed my Masters in Health and Human Services Management. I’m also a trained cognitive behaviour therapist and am studying to be a counsellor specialising in child development and expressive therapies.
I founded Dystinct Magazine during the Covid-19 lockdown to support dyslexic children and their families through this long lonely road ridden with obstacles that is uniquely ours. We are here with a commitment to empower dyslexics and their champions so that, they can discover the strengths within themselves and appreciate the uniqueness that dyslexia has offered them.
We aim at instilling a strong sense of self-worth in dyslexic children who have had unfair opportunities chipping away at their self-esteem throughout their existence. Our mission is to foster a community that celebrates the difference of dyslexia.
Not every dyslexic child is magically a genius. Oftentimes, we spend hours looking for the genius or outside the box thinking in our dyslexic kids failing to realise that it was in them all along, hidden in plain sight under the years self-doubt and shame that the society ingrained in them for not matching up to their peers. We aim to peel back at these negative layers of damaged self-esteem and provide the children with a platform to truly appreciate their uniqueness, take pride in their difference and revel in the knowledge that within their difference, lies their strength.