CONFERENCE: Scope bucks charities’ negative conference trend

By Sunil Peck

Big disability charities squandered the opportunity to promote a positive image of disability at Labour's conference in Brighton this week.

Up to 200 charities and organisations including RNIB, RNID, the MS Society and Scope paid for stands promoting their campaigns to party activists, journalists and politicians attending conference in Brighton.

But a number of them chose to focus on the negative impact of impairments and conditions, rather than raising awareness of the barriers which society creates for disabled people.

The RNID stand offered hearing checks to highlight that the hearing of thousands of older people could be saved if hearing tests on the NHS were introduced.

Annie Goss, the charity's Media Manager, said that the charity's campaigning strategy included people with hearing loss as well as preventing hearing loss.

She said: "We recognise that we are not necessarily a voice for people who are users of BSL, but we support other organisations who are. I think most big disability charities have lots of conflicts in ideas about what they should and shouldn't be doing."

The MS Society's stand had a machine to simulate some of the early symptoms of condition like fatigue, eyesight and balance problems and trembling. Daniel Berry, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the charity, said that the aim was to raise awareness of the need to improve care and support services for people with neurological conditions.

He said: "The government has done a lot to improve health services and cancer and stroke services are much better. But services for neurological conditions have not benefitted from that so our aim is to demonstrate that there is a lot of health and social care and support needed to help people remain independent."

RNIB's stand encouraged visitors to wear blindfolds and imagine what a crushing experience sight loss can be.

It featured a busy road with a pelican crossing, an inaccessible cash machine and a shop with empty tins on shelves in an attempt to depict how difficult independent living is for blind and visually impaired people.

Helen Dearman, Campaigns Officer at RNIB, said that the intention was to highlight the importance of support services for visually impaired people.

But the charity Scope opted for a more positive approach to disability equality. Its stand was a  mock up of a local constituency party office highlighting the importance of involving disabled people in the political system by producing accessible websites and campaign literature and by staging accessible meetings and events.