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Category - disability

  • 31 Jul 2012
    Warehousing disabled people?

    Those across the country who care about human rights for all should oppose the trend to push disabled people into cheap and cheerless institutional living, says Savi Hensman. While councils do indeed face difficult financial challenges, taking away basic rights from any section of the community is not the answer.

  • 19 Jul 2012
    The perfect storm around disability

    The American news website Huffington Post recently published an article headlined, ‘Austerity in the United Kingdom Leaves Disabled in Fear for Their Lives’.

  • 13 Jul 2012
    Paralympic Games challenge churches on disability action

    Churches in Britain are organizing celebrations and activities in the run-up to the Paralympic Games, but are also challenged on disability provision themselves.

  • 1 Jul 2012
    'Overweight middle-aged Englishman' to cycle the length of Africa

    Paul Tolson, a fifty-year old occupational therapist, is aiming to challenge perceptions of age and disability as he cycles from Germany to South Africa.

  • 11 Jun 2012
    'Troubled families': stigmatising sick and disabled people and carers

    The UK government has announced its plan to roll out a scheme to tackle 'troubled families' to all councils in England. According to the hype, it is aimed at cutting truancy, crime and anti-social behaviour and benefit dependency among 120,000 families who are to blame for significant social problems and who cost the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

  • 27 May 2012
    Jubilee and pageantry: the impiety of false pride

    “Gross impiety it is that a nation's pride should be maintained in the face of its poor.” William Penn wrote these words in 1669. We have no means of knowing what his voice might have sounded like when he read them aloud, as he undoubtedly would have done, but when I hear them in my mind's ear, they are spoken with firmness and a touch of anger. They are words we do well to heed in our own time.

  • 17 May 2012
    The real impact of disability cuts

    Here is the full text of the letter published in the Guardian (17 May 2012) from disability organisations and disabled rights advocates, backed by signatories from charities, NGOs, academics and others (including Ekklesia), on the impact of government cuts hitting disabled people.

  • 14 May 2012
    Ignoring truth to slash disabled people’s benefits

    Many people across Europe have recoiled from harsh austerity policies, which are badly affecting the poorest in society as well as ordinary families. But the UK government is determined to take the cuts even further. Half a million people will lose disability living allowance, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has proudly announced.

  • 4 May 2012
    Recession and welfare reform hits Northern Ireland hard says new report

    People in Northern Ireland are caught between the impact of the recession and a programme of austerity and welfare reform, according to new research published on 2 May.

  • 12 Mar 2012
    Invulnerable people

    Regular readers of my blog (a small but much appreciated group!) may wonder if I've got a bit obsessed with the Occupy eviction and my forced removal from the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. Looking back now, I realise that my last five blog entries have been about it.