The future of disability rights is in our hands, so what are you going to do about it?

 With thanks to Imogen May the author of this post;

This isn’t going to be a long blog post, winter is setting in and many of The Broken of Britain are struggling as a result. We may be used to dealing with the consequences of the colder climate, but I don’t think any of us were expecting to be shut out in the cold by the Government.

I’ve followed politics since I was in my teens and I’ve always been involved in Grass Roots activism with disability organizations. I’ve felt anxious before, I’ve worPost Optionsried about my friends with fluctuating impairments or mental health impairments, but I’ve genuinely never been terrified.

The truth is, most disabled people honestly don’t realise the true impact of the cuts this Government is planning to make. Currently, information on specific subjects like Housing Benefit or Disability Living Allowance is filtering down through social media sites like Twitter with a handful of people doing their best to bring the stark truth to our attention. But realistically, reaching a few hundred or even a few thousand people online just isn’t going to cut the mustard!

I feel specifically let down by the Disabled Peoples Direct Action Network (DAN), who seem to have been in hiatus for what feels like years. With small demos taking place every few years, it’s about time they lived up to their name! What we need from DAN right now, isn’t just plans for direct actions, but we need that network. We are a community that has constantly had to fight for our rights and that is only going to become more necessary as the coalition slash our entitlement to benefits and make huge cuts to services. We need a network so that disabled people can reach out to one another, actually inform people of what’s to come as well as support them the best we can once this Welfare Reform Bill is passed. 

I was incredibly disappointed that DAN didn’t make use of the recent Hardest Hit marches in October. It would have been the perfect place to not only show they’re still active, but to introduce disabled people who perhaps felt no need to be political previously, into the world of activism. We are in urgent need of absolutely every single angry disabled person to add their voice so that we may actually be heard.

The Government is planning to cut, from 3.5 million disabled people, a total of £9.2 billion by 2015. And that’s just us, the total amount from the Welfare Reform Bill over that same period is something more like £20 billion.

When this bill is finally passed, I want to be able to say that we did everything we possibly could to stop money being taken from the some of the poorest people in our, so-called, Big Society.

The perceived problem with doing something ‘big’ in order to be noticed is the mixed ability within the disability community. Not all of us are able to attend marches or demos, not all of us have the energy to write a blog post and some of us simply don’t have access to the information needed to know where to start. However, I wouldn’t agree that this is a problem at all, in fact I believe that this is the perfect way for us all to take on a role we are capable of managing. We need all the activists, all the bloggers, all the people who can write the most persuasive letters, all the people who can Tweet info right into the smallest corners of the UK and everyone in-between.  I believe that our problem at the moment is that there doesn’t seem to be one group of people attempting to co-ordinate a multi pronged attack. I’m not talking about leaders, or people making decisions without the backing of our community, but people who are willing to spend time contacting people, informing them, giving ideas of where to direct letters or interacting with other grass root organisations to ensure we’re all on the same page.

I know other bloggers and Tweeters who’ve spoken recently about similar things without much response, but we can’t give up! If you want disability rights to be a reality, if you don’t believe the benefit reform threatens your quality of life, if you know your vital care will be slashed, if you’re anyone else who knows that this is vitally important, if you actually want to be part of something powerful and amazing, then you need to be part of this. The ball is in your court now, the future of disability rights is in our hands, so what are you going to do about it?

For more information, e mail Imogen.Jo@Gmail.com & follow Imogen__May on Twitter.

From Passive To Active Campaigner - By Lisa Elwood

Originally posted at the Creative Crip

@BendyGirl has asked: “Disabled tweeps. What was the defining event which made you become an activist or campaigner?”

Following is my answer. 

The defining event which made me become an activist or campaigner was becoming disabled  2 years ago & having to face the realities of needing help & not getting it.

Twitter was invaluable in connecting me with people like The Broken of Britain Co-Founder & Director Kaliya Franklin aka @BendyGirl of the Benefit Scrounging Scum Blog who have lived this life for far longer, many from birth. The things that I was fighting for personally were the same things that other disabled people were fighting for. The things already in place were there no thanks to the past efforts of campaigners and activists.

I had already had bitter experience and lessons learned about the arduous fight for assistance in the aftermath of my marriage breaking down eight years ago, losing the investment banking job that I had at the time shortly afterwards and becoming homeless off the back of both. It was one thing to have to deal with all of that whilst able-bodied. It is quite another to have to deal with the “you’re breathing, you’re fit for work” attitude by governments past and especially present as someone who is most definitely not fit for anything approximating my old life because of my physical and mental health concerns.

What I managed to achieve helping with The Broken of Britain campaign gave me a reason for staying alive and went some way towards finding the tiniest bit of the “old me” who managed to be useful and productive in spite of any disadvantages. On the surface I’ve always given people the impression that I’m very confident; that I’m a woman who knows exactly what she wants and exactly how to achieve it. Nothing could be further from the truth, and especially since I’ve become disabled.

As I said before, what I’ve had to endure in the workplace absolutely destroyed me. It is fair to say that I am quite far from being able to just “get over it”. It is those experiences which,my disabilities aside, sounded the death-knell for as far as working for other people and outside the home are concerned. But try telling that to the coalition government and opposition, the jobsworth drones at the Job Centre or private profiteers of unemployed and disabled misery A4E and ATOS. It’s a textbook exercise in futility. Even self-employment is like trying to scale Mt. Everest on rollerblades. Everything, and I do mean absolutelyEVERYTHING, is a battle when you are disabled.

I was, and still am, acutely aware that I am particularly lucky to be a very strong person in many respects: I am not afraid to be open, direct and searingly honest; qualities that have worked against me as much as they have for me. So, as with other things I’ve been involved with, disability campaigning enables me to give a voice to the unheard. Whatever I do to help myself also benefits other people and vice-versa. We really “are all in it together” at the grass roots level.

As Kaliya always says, “alone we whisper, together we shout”.