Accessify, The Accessible Living Think Tank, held its official launch at the Everyman Cinema in Oxted in October.
Founder Abi Chapman invited several local organisations to speak at the event, beginning with Jenni Schofield, whose talk was entitled ‘Queerness & Disability – Life at the Intersection’. Katy Hubbard, from the Surrey Coalition for Disabled People, followed with information about The Get More Active Project, and Helen Guest, Matthew Leadbetter and Elizabeth Wheeler from Pro Active Community spoke about hospital passports and the Disability Taxi Charter.
Helen said the launch was ‘a truly engaging event, providing an ideal networking opportunity to share contacts and, most importantly from our perspective, raising awareness of the bias, challenges, necessity for change and ongoing inequity faced by people with disabilities.
I look forward to watching all that comes from the work, research and accessibility audits Accessify UK will lead on. Pro Active Community members have already said how they want to join with whatever they can to bring experts with lived experience to drive decision making and ultimately necessary change.’
Hina Ashraf from the Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum talked about the unique challenges faced by ethnic minorities with disabilities in the UK, and Lucy Coney introduced the audience to her project The Pleasure Party, an initiative exploring ‘how we embed pleasure into policy to enact change within the disability sphere’.
Abi delivered the keynote speech, entitled ‘Our Stories Have the Power to Change the World’. Her focus, on the role storytelling can play in changing not only perceptions and narratives, but communities, societies and the wider world as well, was brought to life through examples of her own experiences. She also explained how Accessify (formerly The Accessibility Project) works, by ‘combining research, consultancy and service design together to address social health factors which can have a negative impact on life quality’.
An informal networking session took place after the event.
Abi said:
“To be able to bring the leaders and vital voices from a range of sectors together in one room and dedicate the morning solely to the disabled experience, to recognise the barriers that exist within barriers, and explore how we can make a positive difference has been phenomenal. The journey for Accessify has only just begun, but it is a journey we are excited to take, and to start that change right here in Tandridge, the district I grew up in, is an honour.”
She also reflected on Accessify’s success at the recent Tandridge Business Awards:
“I still can’t fathom that a project I founded only two years ago won the Community Service Provider of the Year Award!
The other three organisations in this category – Hurst Green’s Community Fridge, Warren Clark Golfing and The Orpheus Centre – are phenomenal and I have so much respect for them.
I started this work because of my own personal experiences. I was born with a rare medical condition which has been absolutely disabling at times and put barriers in my path, but I also had parents and family who supported me through university, let me focus on building my dreams and were my medical advocates when I couldn’t be, which is much rarer than you would think. This formed my belief that all disabled and neurodivergent individuals have the right to that. It shouldn’t be down to luck at birth, it shouldn’t be down to circumstance…Disability should never be an automatic factor for poor quality of life.
And for the Tandridge Business Awards to recognise the work we do, honestly means the world!”
Visit the Accessify website or follow Accessify on Instagram.
