On Saturday 18 October Rix Inclusive Research hosted a Campaigning Day with Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance in the Royal Docks Centre for Sustainability on Docklands Campus.
There were several speakers who came to talk about their experiences of campaigning for disability rights and social justice. Sue told us about the Direct Action she took part in during the 1980s. This included chaining herself to buses in Oxford Street with other disabled people, taking over Government Offices and targeting the 15 MPs who kept trying to prevent the Disability and Discrimination Act (1995) from being passed. This made me feel inspired, that protesting and other peaceful forms of protest like chaining yourself to a bus make a real and tangible difference to society for disabled people. I was shocked that it took so much campaigning to force the Government to make train and bus travel accessible.
Thanks to people like Sue, I can now expect all public transport to be accessible, as well as public buildings. This isn’t always the case even now, but at least we have a legal right for it to happen which we didn’t have before the 1995 Act.
Other speakers talked about campaigning to make their local railway station accessible, and for increased social care packages. Sam, who is the Campaigns and Research Officer in Pathfinders, talked about his fight to get accessible housing in Bristol where he and his cat Barry live. He also told us about the new social care campaign and other research that Pathfinders are involved in. In the afternoon a new initiative was announced, the ‘Hoists in Hotels’ campaign.
This campaign is trying to persuade hotels across the country to put hoists into their bedrooms so that disabled guests can stay there. It can be a real problem finding places to stay if you are disabled, so hopefully, through this campaign, more people will realise what is needed to make places properly accessible.
Saul Catlin, RIX co-researcher
