Tag Archives: disability

Disability activists use social media to put care cuts on the political agenda

August 21, 2012   Carers, disability, internet

Disability activists use social media to put care cuts on the political agenda

Success of Twitter-driven approach put down to ability to engage many campaigners confined to their homes
• Behind the Paralympics, the reality for disabled people in Britain 2012

 

Many disabled people who might otherwise have been unable to be heard have become engaged by campaigns on Twitter.

While there are fears that traditional methods of disability activism are on the wane, a new campaigning spirit is been forged using the social media revolution.

The past 18 months have seen the first flowerings of a new network of activist groups and a shared, inclusive approach that has thrust their engaging campaigning style into the public eye.

Galvanised by the government’s draconian welfare reform agenda, the new activism arguably is helping to renew a disability movement thought by some to have lost its way in recent years.

The staggering Twitter-driven success of the “We Are Spartacus” campaign in January announced the emergence of this new wave. This carefully planned viral campaign steered by a tiny band of activists almost single-handedly put the previously arcane issue of cuts in disability living allowance on the public agenda.

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Limbless swimmer Philippe Croizon links continents

August 18, 2012   Carers, disability

Philippe Croizon said he wanted to be an inspiration to other disabled people

18 August 2012 Last updated at 11:53

French amputee swimmer Philippe Croizon (R), and his friend swimmer Arnaud Chassery, celebrate after swimming between islands in the icy Bering Strait on 18 August 2012

A Frenchman who lost all his limbs in an electrocution accident has completed a swim to link five continents.

Using tailor-made flippers, Philippe Croizon finished his quest by crossing between the US island of Little Diomede and Great Diomede in Russia, joining Asia and the Americas.

The 44-year-old has swum three other straits since May.

Reaching shore, he said the icy waters had been a challenge.

“This was the hardest swim of my life, with a water temperature of four degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) and strong currents,” he told AFP news agency. “We made it.”

He swam the 4.3km (2.7 miles) stretch in the Bering Strait in one hour and 20 minutes, accompanied by friend and long-distance swimmer Arnaud Chassery.

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Benefit reforms ‘will hit disabled’

August 17, 2012   Carers, disability, family, mental health, poverty

Low-income families and the disabled will be among the hardest hit by the pending abolition of housing benefit, a report has claimed.

Social tenants will “lose hundreds of millions of pounds” as a result of the UK Government’s welfare reforms, according to the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA).

Housing benefit will be phased out from April 2013 and substituted with the new universal credit, a single payment which will replace the current range of working age benefits. But the new order could result in “significant financial losses” to tenants on low incomes living in housing association and co-operative properties, the SFHA said.

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