Unity, equality, capacity

A recently formed alliance aims to give disabled people the wherewithal to fight our own battles and campaign for change says Stephen Lee Hodgkins

The impact of the recession on the survival prospects of many third sector organisations will be foremost in the minds of many Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), as they struggle to balance the books and compete for income and contracts to safeguard the futures of their organisations against a worsening economic climate.

But the reality for DPOs, as a distinct sector within the third sector, is that the challenges they face have their roots in problems which pre-date the collapse of the banks and the current economic panic. There are deeper, more fundamental reasons why life at a DPO too often feels like a high wire act.

No other social change movement is so dominated by people without the direct experience of that which they seek to address. We chant “nothing about us, without us”, yet we have very limited control and are often left out when it comes to what we have shown we can do well at.

Confronting those issues and working to rekindle a collective DPO power is now the focus of a major three-year Big Lottery funded project, Disability LIB, which has just held its first national conference, “Disabled People’s Organisations: A Force for Change”.

Disability LIB is an alliance which came together in 2007 to challenge the causes of DPO survival problems.

Disability LIB offers DPOs capacity building advice, support and training. It works on shared experience adapted around what each individual DPO needs.

Our work supports DPOs in the UK to overcome current issues and build on their previous successes, to be strong, loud, sustained, politically well organised, and a force to be reckoned with in national, regional and local policy and commissioning frameworks.

We also need to have a collective force in order to affect progressive social change. Current issues around welfare reform and the UN convention on the human rights of disabled people are clear examples: whilst we need to understand what these changes will mean for disabled people and our services, we also need to be in a position to effectively challenge the policy decisions that are being made about us.

DPOs can certainly be more effective together, but there has to be a clear recognition and respect for our diverse differences. Through better communication and more time together listening, recognising and valuing the unique style and contribution we each can bring, no matter our focus, locality and way of doing things, our fight for human rights will be stronger. At this time of financial crisis and political opportunity
we must draw on the wide range of business skills and campaigning expertise we have amongst us.

This will help us achieve our anti-disablism mission.• For more, contact stephen.hodgkins@disabilitylib.org.uk