UK Disability History Month is holding a Pre-Launch for 2011 on Thursday 22nd September at the TUC, Great Russell Street, WC1 from 5pm to 6.30 pm.
Co-ordinator Richard Rieser has urged everyone to attend, stating: “This is a crucial time to celebrate the contribution of disabled people to our society, now and in the past. We seem to be under attack on all sides with cuts in our livelihood, benefits and housing. We are made out to be cheats and liars in parts of the popular press. Hate crime is on the increase as we are increasingly picked upon to vent people’s frustrations with the current economic situation.
“Yet disabled people have always made a terrific contribution to humanity. Think of just a few from history-Julius Cesar, Milton, Isaac Newton, Beethoven, Horatio Nelson, Emily Dickenson, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Van Gogh, Frida Khalo, Virginia Wolfe, Paul Klee and Alan Turing to see our impact. More recently, David Blunkett MP , Ian Drury, Richard Branson, Stephen Fry, Bill Gates, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, Dame Jane Campbell, Lord Low, Alison Lapper, Evelyn Glennie, Oscar Pretorius, Betty Jackson, Stevie Wonder are a tiny proportion of those who have made a difference and would count as disabled people under the Equalities Act”.
Disability History Month is in its second year and takes place in the UK from November 22ndto December 21st.
For more information on UKDHM go to website www.ukdisabilityhistorymonth.com or contact Richard Rieser, UKDHM Co-ordinator 07715420727 or rlrieser@gmail.com