Thirty years after the world’s first disability discrimination law (the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990), and fourteen years after the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, debate remains fierce on how to influence public attitudes and behaviours towards disabled people: how to erode and replace discriminatory stereotypes.
Disability rights advocates argue that charities (perhaps inadvertently) reinforce negative imagery in their promotion and fundraising. Yet arguably defining disability as a core equality issue has not, as yet, lit up public consciousness and action.
In this event, we heard from those who are striving to shift narratives around disability through public awareness campaigns globally and who explored whether and how an empirical approach to ‘framing’ could effectively move public perceptions and behaviours.
Panelist
Fredrick Ouko Alucheli
Fredrick Ouko Alucheli is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, the Co-Chief Executive & Transformation Officer at ADD International, and the founder of Riziki Source, a social enterprise that facilitates access to job opportunities for persons with disabilities leveraging the power of technology. His work looks at issues of inequalities that persons with disabilities face in Kenya and beyond.
Panelist
Liz Sayce
Liz Sayce (@lizsayce) is a JRF Practitioner Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at LSE. Liz was Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK (and its legacy charity Radar) from 2007-2017, where she led work for equal participation for all, through programmes on independent living, career opportunities and shifts in cultural attitudes and behaviour.
Panelist
Professor Tom Shakespeare
Tom Shakespeare (@TommyShakes) is Professor of Disability Research at International Centre for Evidence in Disability at LSHTM. He is author, among many books and papers, of Disability Rights and Wrongs (2006). He was formerly at WHO, where he was a co-author/editor of the World Report on Disability. He has been involved in the disability rights movement for 35 years. He is also author of Sexual Politics of Disability; Disability Rights and Wrongs; and Disability - the Basics.
Panelist
Kate Stanley
Kate Stanley (@KateAStanley) serves as Executive Director of FrameWorks UK, the sister organisation to FrameWorks in the US. Kate’s career has focussed on bringing about social change with a particular focus on children and families. From 2011-2020, she was at UK’s largest child protection charity, NSPCC, where she served as a Board Director. Previously, Kate was Deputy Director of the leading thinktank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, where she worked closely with academics and organisations to influence government social policy and practice.
Chair
Professor Armine Ishkanian
Armine Ishkanian is the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme and Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research examines the relationship between civil society, democracy, development, and social transformation.
Banner Image: Photo by Atikah Akhtar
