One Voice - action for disability
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2010— we have a difference of opinion in the office about whether it is a new year or a new decade, but we’re pleased to wish you a happy new year anyway!
This month, we have an article on snow, one on a tv programme, something on education, and some news and arts shorts.
Cassandra looks at Elections and disabled candidates, as a taster for the coming Election, and the editor asks for your involvement and opinions on Election-related things on this page.
Our next newsletter will be out a few weeks before the Election, so we are preparing you in advance!
You can get this newsletter in large print, audio cd or online—let us know what format you need.
The views in this newsletter are those of the article writers, they are not always what One Voice thinks.
We are coming up to an Election, so please tell us any of your political news stories, so we can feature them in our newsletter or on our blog (www.1voice.org.uk/blog/ ).
We will be producing an election special newsletter to help you make choices about who to vote for.
Send in questions you want put to the local (Wolverhampton) candidates. We pick 10 questions and send them to all the candidates, and publish the answers we get. Sometimes a party does not respond – we tell you that too.
All we ask is the questions have something to do with disability and disabled people, because those are not the questions that get asked by news outlets. If you want to follow what the candidates say about the economy, or defence, or education etc, you can find it out from tv, radio or print news, we want to find out the answers to questions we have as disabled people, so please send us your questions, so we can put them to the candidates!
If the Conservatives become the Government this Spring, they are planning to make £1,000,000 available as a fund to help disabled people become MPs, local Councillors or Civil Servants – the aim is to make public office a more inclusive option.
At the moment, while 20% of the population (according to the census) is disabled, 5% of MPs are disabled.
Should they win the next Election, the Conservative Government will set up an “access to public life” fund, to cover the costs of adapting premises to make them accessible, sign language interpreters, specialised equipment, travel and support workers.
These things are important if any Government is serious about including disabled people as decision makers, although much of this should already be provided under the Disability Discrimination Act.
Also it is disappointing that the Conservatives are not putting any new money into this – they plan to divert money from the “efficiency savings” they expect to make from the Equality and Human Rights Budget.
It is a good idea that they are drawing attention to these inequalities: while Labour addressed them with the Disability Discrimination Act, they have done little to police the measures to make sure real change is happening.
It is also disappointing that a party apparently awash with Lord Ashcroft’s money is doing little to directly promote disabled candidates in their own party– like it is with the women.
Channel 4 made a report on the Ashcroft ‘targeted seats fund’ pointing out that in Brentford & Isleworth the woman selected for Tory Candidate had enough money available to deliver one leaflet per household per week – at a cost of around £2,000 per week. It would be excellent if that kind of money was made available to disabled candidates. But there would also need to be a programme of reserved shortlists for disabled candidates:
– there are 646 MPs in the House of Commons (too many probably):
519 men to 126 women;
15 from an ethnic minority:631 white/British;
32 describing themselves as disabled:614 not.
It is hard to see how they can claim to represent our country, and that’s without getting into class, and how most MPs now seem to be lawyers – which is only slightly better than being car salesmen.
The views in this piece are Cassandra’s they are not necessarily what One Voice thinks.
Paralympics
Channel 4 will be showing the Paralympics in 2012 for the first time. The Chair of Channel 4 told news programmes "For Channel 4, the London Paralympics games will be the main event, not a sideshow to the Olympics; the games will define our year in 2012 and take over Channel 4 for their duration.”
Channel 4 have promised to show 150 hours of the Paralympics in the 12 days, as well as showing the Paralympics torch as it makes its way from Beijing to London. They will also show 2 10 part documentaries – in 2011 and 2012, showing the stories of athletes planning to take part in the games, as they prepare over the2 years – aiming to build a bigger audience as we get to know some of the athletes personally.
New EU directive under discussion
EU member states are talking about a new directive for equal treatment of disabled people in Europe.
It is a chance to include equality requirements on the design of goods. This would cover things like rules to make milk boxes more accessible to disabled people. At the moment, the DDA does not cover this.
They are also looking at improving use of buses and coaches, by having a regulation that staff must be trained with regard to disabled people (including bus drivers) and better information provision.
The UK Government is not supporting these proposals, but a group of large disability-related charities have started a campaign to encourage the Prime Minister to sign up.
You can join the campaign here: http://campaigns.sense.org.uk/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id%20=150&ea.campaign.id=5567#email
Government Cancer Care Plan
Every cancer patient is to have access to a home nurse in the next five years under new proposals announced by Prime Minister.
All 1.6 million cancer patients who have or have had the disease will be offered one-to-one care in their homes as part of plans, so that they don't have to travel to clinics for chemo and other therapies.
Disabled Student Fund not working
Over 12,000 disabled students are still waiting for their funding for basic access equipment like voice recognition software or text-to-Braille machines 4 months later.
An official inquiry into the problem found that only five per cent of phone calls were answered during peak times and documents had been lost.
Meanwhile disabled students are being denied the right to equal access to learning, until this is sorted out.
Health & Wellbeing event
A Health & webllbeing event takes place at the Ravidassia Community Centre, Dudley Road Blakenhall on 4th March from 11-2.00
Information & services available on the day include Stroke/Diabetes awareness, Pensions Service, Walking for Health, Health though warmth, Grants for your home.
Bee-Well with Unity-Seven
One Voice member Anne-Marie has set up a new firm in Wolverhampton with some friends.
Unity Seven Bee-Well Support service has a team of lifestyle consultants bringing to you a unique blend of lifestyle advice including:
Complimentary therapies including massage
hydrotherapy
Bee-Well veggie meals on wheels service.
Their consultants have varying backgrounds in the fields of nursing, herbalist, nutrition; massage therapies, teaching, cooking and health and fitness. And over 30 years experience!
Their consultants work either on a one-to-one basis or in conjunction with community groups.
Because one of the consultants is a blind woman they have a good understanding of disabled people’s circumstances and needs. They told us that the people who most need massage and hydrotherapy treatments are often on disability benefits and unable to afford it. It is for this reason that Unity Seven offer concessionary prices for all the above services for people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance or equivalent.
They say “Unity Seven also recognizes that for many being unable to exercise, massage would be a really good way of getting a full body work-out.
Scientifically, evidence shows that those who receive massage and hydrotherapy on a regular basis, can reduce pain relief medication. Not to mention the benefits such as its ability to produce endorphin’s (feel-good chemicals in the brain). “
Bee-Well want to encourage disabled people to be regular users of their service, and offer loyalty cards which mean that for every 10 entries on the card, clients can receive 1 free treatment whether it is massage or hydrotherapy. .
If you would like to know more about any of our services, contact them:
01902 451318 or at chilout@uwclub.net.
initial consultations are free of charge
Massage and hydrotherapy treatments - £15 per session
Bee-Well Veggie Meals on Wheels - £40 per week
Bee-Well Support Service including all the above- £50 per week.
Many years ago I remember shouting this slogan and waving placards in protest into the then Government introducing student loans. History shows that our protest wasn’t successful. Anyway this article isn’t about to go over old ground or fight old wars on the issue of loans itself but to focus on one of the current issues facing disabled students.
From media reports it is clear that there has been a huge crisis this academic year with thousands of students starting without their full loan and grant entitlement after problems with the processing of applications. Some four months after the start of the academic year it appears that some 16,000 English-based students are still waiting for at least some of their money and further 2,000, whose claims have been fully processed, are waiting for their first payment.
The figures from the Student Loans Company (SLC) which were obtained by a Freedom of Information request also show that nearly 12,500 students in England are still waiting for grants to pay for specialist equipment. The statistics reveal two thirds of students with a disability or special needs are still waiting for money.
An inquiry into the loans delays led by Professor Sir Deian Hopkin, which reported in December, complained of "conspicuous failures" and the SLC has been criticised for its mismanagement of regular student loans.
Disabled Students Allowance is available for all UK students with a disability and are used to buy specialist computer equipment resources such as Braille paper, or to pay for personal helpers to assist on campus such as note takers for deaf students.
In England the DSA is administered by the SLC and this mismanagement and delays have severely affected students with disabilities, because of the 19,006 eligible DSA applications, only 6,507 have been fully processed and approved by the SLC. This means that, almost four months after term started, only 34% of eligible applications have been processed so thousands of disabled students are still waiting for the funding they need to pay for vital equipment.
This leads me back to that slogan which was chanted all them years ago about ‘education being a right not a privilege’ well we all know the statistics about the economic circumstances of disabled people and it is clear we do not belong to the ‘privileged’ class so in the absence of loans, grants as well as DSA to who can disabled people turn to for emergency funding or help.
Ultimately this means a higher proportion of disabled students are forced to drop out and thus denied a chance to participate in something which I found to be one of the most valuable experiences in my life. Once again, it seems our needs are not being met and we are being left behind, not just us but all students deserve better, much better!
Ian n Hettie.
One of our volunteers – Nigel Driver - who is a disabled student , has done an info pack for disabled students which is free to download from our website: www.1voice.org.uk/downloads.htm
Channel 4 +1. Tuesday evenings.
Looking Good Naked is a weekly fashion programme for women of various ages and sizes, giving fashion advice and confidence to parade on the Catwalk, and finally pose naked for the cameras. Looking Good Naked with a Difference, aims to provide fashion advice for disabled people, the programme is also about giving disabled people confidence to feel good about their bodies. In a recent programme a lady with sight impairment for many years received advice on shopping for clothes. She posed naked for the cameras, respectfully covered with flowers, and finally paraded on the Catwalk in front of many people in Manchester Shopping Centre, her daughter said she was very proud of what she had done. One Voice readers might like to watch the programme and comment.
Steve Hopley (sorry to disappoint you, I won't be taking part!!)
One of our readers emailed to tell us that while he liked our feature on disabled composers, there was a big omission: Lili Boulanger.
French composer Lili Boulanger died in 1917 - a few months before her 25th birthday. In her short life she had a weak immune system, and a chronic bowel condition, but that didn't stop her from composing some lovely and startling music.
She won the Prix de Rome when she was barely 20, and in her short life composed several noteable works including:
* Faust et Hélène (- a cantata) (1913)
* D'un matin de printemps (1918)
* D'un soir triste (1918)
Chandos released an excellent version of her vocal and choral works in 1999 which is still available to buy.
With the surprising, beautiful, and quickly annoying snowfall we had in January, it was interesting to see how Britain ground to a halt.
The kind of daily difficulties faced by people with mobility impairments, were now being faced by the non-disabled or previously mobile population: public transport not available, or not stopping anywhere near you, an inability to get into and out of public buildings, difficulties doing shopping and daily living – and all for a few days.
Of course it was worse for those of us who use wheelchairs or sticks or crutches, because while many motorists moaned about the patchy gritting on some roads, and news channels ranted hysterically about how little grit was left on earth (well they seemed to be implying it was that big a problem), the one thing that never got gritted was pavements.
So how were people with mobility impairments supposed to manage – many of us trapped in our homes for a week ?
It was quite a news story with my friends and I. But was it featured on any news programmes? Of course not: the only story they are interested in telling about us at the moment is in connection with euthanasia – so we are more interesting killed than imprisoned in our homes it seems.
There was one news item though, on the BBC morning programme, that warmed me (as I shouted at the t.v.) – one of their dense reporters was telling stories of the ‘idiotic and dangerous’ things he’d witnessed people doing in the snow – one was a man at night pushing a wheelchair user in the road – he got very excited about how “stupid” this was.
He was not bright enough to ask the bigger news question though – if a wheelchair user gets caught out by a sudden heavy snowfall – like many non-disabled people did, how are they supposed to get back to their homes, when the pavements, dropped kerbs etc are not gritted, and wheelchair tyres, stick ends etc are don’t have good grip against snow and ice.
Wouldn’t it have made a good news story to look at that – no one else was. But the BBC went for the easy sensationalist option, without thinking about the cause.
By Sue Woo
One Voice usually has a walk in West Park every Monday that it doesn’t rain, between 1.00 and 2.00.
Last Monday, with snow on the ground, the walk was made up of 2 people, a dog, and seventeen squirrels!
Come and walk with us so we don’t feel so lonely!
If you want to come and join us, simply turn up at the Park Avenue Gate—by the 6 Blue Badge parking spots.
Come along for a bit of fresh air and exercise, or just to say hello to the squirrels!