I have previously re-blogged one of Chris Markiewicz’ blogs. His weekly offerings always make me think and challenge my perceptions and occasionally my prejudices too.
This week, Chris has highlighted one of the social problems of our day: the employment of disabled people. There are at least 5 million disabled people of working age in the UK, of whom only 45% are actually working, compared to 75% of the total population. Which means disabled people are not fighting on a level playing field.
What does this create – a culture of dependency and welfare; not what disable people want or need. Employers, it is time to address this issue – what would happen if a disabled person applied for a vacancy within your organisation. Would you give them an equal chance. Some would, most do not!
This weekend I took a trip up to the wilds of the north east – Newcastle to be precise. It was to be only my second ever trip to that city and the reason was a tad unusual.
I’d agreed to do a stand up comedy set for a meeting of the Northern Alliance Ushers & RP Group. This is a get together of folk who have the same eye condition as myself along with those who have Usher’s syndrome – same condition but with added “bonus” of gradual loss of hearing.
I was wary of the trip. Partly because I could find myself in the company of people who speak an unusual form of English, but also because I wasn’t sure what to expect from a large crowd of people with such conditions (would the room be full of bods tuning pianos or weaving baskets? I’m joking of course)…
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