Where's the Benefit is primarily a blogging platform for a collective of disabled activists rather than a campaign per se. Between us we cover many of the more prominent activists, but there's no coordinated action. If there's any coordination at all it tends to be on twitter.
I'm not sure there's much talk about organising happening in UK disability circles. Most UK disability activists and groups are necessarily focussed on stopping the savage benefit cuts, rather than campaigning to make things better at the moment. Some of that is individual, one of my on line friends is involved in extended legal action over whether the changes have breached UK or international law, another is Sky New's goto person for the disability view, many of us have written for various papers, etc, other campaigning is via a variety of groups:
Spartacus are a very loose collective of disabled people who have assembled behind a bunch of reports that have been put together by various disabled people (most of whom I know to one degree or another), which dissect government disability policy and point out the inconvenient truths.
Disabled People Against The Cuts (DPAC) and Black Triangle are probably the biggest, and most radical, activist groups, I was at the DPAC launch, but I don't agree with some of their policies (too rigid), so I prefer to keep my independence.
There's also WOWCampaign, which was specifically focussed on getting a petition through to force a parliamentary debate on disability cuts. They did that (the debate was a farce), but are still active on a general campaigning basis.
Problematic for many disabled people is Disability Rights UK, which is a merger of several traditional disability charities and whose chief exec was behind several deeply divisive policies, such as the decision to close the Remploy sheltered workshops. They've taken government money to be an organising voice for disabled people, a concept I find deeply problematic, and they're frequently far too reluctant to oppose government policy.
ALLFIE - the Alliance for Inclusive Education - campaign to close the remaining segregated 'special' schools.
Transport for All are a London focussed group working for transport accessibility. I think they're pretty damn good at it and wish they would go national.
Inclusion London is another London focussed group who seem to do a particularly good job on general disability matters.
People First England is a new umbrella group designed to give a voice to learning disabled people on political matters.
Scope was formerly the Spastics Society, one of the big traditional disability charities, but it rebuilt itself on a much more inclusive general disability basis (though not without some ongoing issues) and it's probably the most significant charity WRT physical disability and more generally WRT things like Disability Hate Crime - I was their goto 'actual victim' for media interviews for a while. They're very media savvy, google 'End the Awkward' for a recent national campaign.
Mind are roughly the equivalent to Scope for mental health issues.
Ouch used to be a BBC disability forum, which is where I and many of the current generation of activists learned our stuff in the early Oughties, but the BBC shut it down a few years ago :( They still run disability news under the BBC Ouch headline and have a monthly podcast.
In the Lords Baroness Jane Campbell and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thomson are particularly effective campaigners for making sure our voice is heard.
Most of these have pretty extensive web, Facebook and/or Twitter presences, so should be easily googleable. Feel free to poke me for any particular link or for anything else disability wise. If I don't know it myself I probably know someone who does.
no subject
I'm not sure there's much talk about organising happening in UK disability circles. Most UK disability activists and groups are necessarily focussed on stopping the savage benefit cuts, rather than campaigning to make things better at the moment. Some of that is individual, one of my on line friends is involved in extended legal action over whether the changes have breached UK or international law, another is Sky New's goto person for the disability view, many of us have written for various papers, etc, other campaigning is via a variety of groups:
Spartacus are a very loose collective of disabled people who have assembled behind a bunch of reports that have been put together by various disabled people (most of whom I know to one degree or another), which dissect government disability policy and point out the inconvenient truths.
Disabled People Against The Cuts (DPAC) and Black Triangle are probably the biggest, and most radical, activist groups, I was at the DPAC launch, but I don't agree with some of their policies (too rigid), so I prefer to keep my independence.
There's also WOWCampaign, which was specifically focussed on getting a petition through to force a parliamentary debate on disability cuts. They did that (the debate was a farce), but are still active on a general campaigning basis.
Problematic for many disabled people is Disability Rights UK, which is a merger of several traditional disability charities and whose chief exec was behind several deeply divisive policies, such as the decision to close the Remploy sheltered workshops. They've taken government money to be an organising voice for disabled people, a concept I find deeply problematic, and they're frequently far too reluctant to oppose government policy.
ALLFIE - the Alliance for Inclusive Education - campaign to close the remaining segregated 'special' schools.
Transport for All are a London focussed group working for transport accessibility. I think they're pretty damn good at it and wish they would go national.
Inclusion London is another London focussed group who seem to do a particularly good job on general disability matters.
People First England is a new umbrella group designed to give a voice to learning disabled people on political matters.
Scope was formerly the Spastics Society, one of the big traditional disability charities, but it rebuilt itself on a much more inclusive general disability basis (though not without some ongoing issues) and it's probably the most significant charity WRT physical disability and more generally WRT things like Disability Hate Crime - I was their goto 'actual victim' for media interviews for a while. They're very media savvy, google 'End the Awkward' for a recent national campaign.
Mind are roughly the equivalent to Scope for mental health issues.
Ouch used to be a BBC disability forum, which is where I and many of the current generation of activists learned our stuff in the early Oughties, but the BBC shut it down a few years ago :( They still run disability news under the BBC Ouch headline and have a monthly podcast.
In the Lords Baroness Jane Campbell and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thomson are particularly effective campaigners for making sure our voice is heard.
Most of these have pretty extensive web, Facebook and/or Twitter presences, so should be easily googleable. Feel free to poke me for any particular link or for anything else disability wise. If I don't know it myself I probably know someone who does.