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Hi folks, Just over two weeks now till the big day so I hope you are all organized and looking forward to some Christmas parties! This is the second last e-mail update before the end of the year, so if there is anything you want advertised get it into me quickly! Please get in contact by email – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , telephone – 0141 887 7058 or write to me at Inclusion Scotland, 5A Sir James Clarke Building, Abbey Mill Business Centre, Paisley PA1 1TJ. Have a great weekend! Best wishes, Donna News Update Monday 7th December 2009 The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against Scottish public authorities which fail to protect disabled people from harassment. Mark poised for victory as pub protest to force change in law A disabled man's campaign for better information on accessibility of pubs could lead to a change in the law. Tuesday 8th December 2009 Landmark agreement for the Independent Living Movement and all disabled people in Scotland Today sees the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Convenor of the Independent Living in Scotland Steering Group, Jim Elder Woodward, jointly sign up to a shared vision for independent living in Scotland, at Victoria Quay in Edinburgh. Wednesday 9th December 2009 Drama schools must do more to attract disabled students, says campaigner Drama schools are being urged to “open their doors” to disabled students as part of a nation-wide campaign aimed at encouraging disabled people to pursue a career in the arts. Assisted suicide bill moves closer A bill to legalise assisted deaths in Scotland has been laid down in Holyrood. Thursday 10th December 2009 Pre-Budget Report: Child and disability benefit to rise from April Alistair Darling told MPs that child and disability benefit would rise by 1.5 per cent from next April. The Association of Disabled Professionals wins prestigious Human Rights Award The Association of Disabled Professionals were the winners of RADAR's People of the Year Human Rights Awards for 'Doing Careers Differently'. Information Inclusion Scotland Membership Inclusion Scotland is Scotland’s leading organisation of disabled people. We aim to draw attention to the physical, social, economic, cultural and attitudinal barriers that affect our everyday lives as disabled people in Scotland. If you or your organisation would like to join Inclusion Scotland, see our website www.inclusionscotland.org for more information. Or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or telephone 0141 887 7058. Scottish Rural Equality Network (SREN) Online Discussion Forum Online Discussion Forum for the Scottish Rural Equality Network (SREN), sponsored by the Equality & Human Rights Commission and developed by the Highlands & Islands Equality Forum (HIEF), is now live at www.scvo.org.uk/srenonline/ Discussion boards featured are: · News and Hot Topics - what's happening in the world of Rural Equality - discussions on emerging news stories, updates and key issues · Shared Resources - requests for help, support, advice and expertise; sharing and signposting of key resources (includes link to HIEF Equality Toolkit) · Events and Training - Adverts, requests, discussions, reviews on anything and everything to do with events and training · Public Duties - all issues around public sector duties This Online Forum has been created because people across rural Scotland have told HIEF that it would be a useful tool to support their local work in equalities. Marginalised groups and individuals in rural areas face challenges to inclusion which are often caused or made worse by living in a rural environment and the SREN network is being developed to allow shared learning on common issues. The Forum can only succeed as a support network if folks from across rural Scotland contribute regularly to the sharing of learning and information. Our network will be strengthened by numbers - no one person holds the answers to all questions but collectively we do have a lot of knowledge, it's just a matter of linking up and exchanging those pearls of wisdom! So be prepared to contribute as well as to learn - take pride in sharing your local case studies, they will be an inspiration to others. 2009 Directory of Opportunities for Disabled People in Fife The 2009 Directory of Opportunities for Disabled People in Fife is now ready and over the last couple of months has been distributed widely across Fife, as well as being available at www.fifedirect.org.uk/fenlink. The directory guides disabled people through their options on the employability journey and introduces the people and organisations who can help. It has also proved very helpful to carers, practitioners and family members - and it’s free. If you haven’t yet received copies or would like additional copies, please phone Sandra Wilson on 01592 583378 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Scottish Accessible Information Forum (SAIF) - Public Service Providers And Accessible Information During the year, SAIF undertook some research with several organisations across Scotland looking at the provision of accessible information in their organisation and their awareness of the role and remit of SAIF. This report summarises the main findings from the research and sets out the next steps for SAIF in taking forward the recommendations. SAIF would like to thank all the people who participated in the research. To download a copy of this report visit www.saifscotland.org.uk ‘Your Call’ telephone service 'Your Call' is a free telephone counseling service which is open to disabled people from all over Scotland. The `Your Call' counsellors are all disabled people themselves, providing them with an understanding of what it means to live as a disabled person in Scotland. The counsellors work as volunteers, and are trained to a professional standard in counselling. The service takes calls to its appointment line from 11am until 3 pm Mondays to Thursdays. Calls are free from a home telephone, and from most mobile networks(including T-Mobile, Vodaphone, O2, 3, Orange and Virgin Mobile). The number is withheld so it will not appear on the phone bill. Counselling can help people who are trying to come to terms with painful events from their past, or who need support through a current crisis or change in lifestyle. It can also help people who are struggling to manage difficult feelings such as depression or anxiety, or who are seeking direction and meaning in their lives. A counsellor will not judge, nor tell a person how to live their life. Instead he or she is trained to help explore a person's own situation and to support them to find their own way forward. The 'Your Call' number is 08088 01 03 62, and the service is open to all disabled people in Scotland who are over the age of 16, and their immediate family members. 16 Days of Action 16 Days of Action has become a familiar fixture in the diary of events taking place in Glasgow each year. The international campaign dates November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, were chosen to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasise that such violence is a violation of human rights. For more information on the campaign and events being run around it please contact Fiona Crumlin on 0141 276 9860 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Playback ICE Playback is an organisation which promotes inclusion, active citizenship and equity through creative and innovative learning resources, training, consultation and evaluation processes. They have launched a new web site dedicated to our two most recent resources:
Safe Journey Card You may be interested to know about the "First Group" safe journey card to use if you travel by bus or train. This is a down loadable ticket shaped card that you can print off to show the driver / conductor to discretely ask for assistance or patience when boarding / leaving. Particularly useful if you have a hidden impairment. There are pre-printed cards with requests on them such as: "Please wait until I sit down before driving off"; "I have difficulty speaking"; "I have difficulty hearing" and so on, plus a blank one for you to fill in yourself. Makes a change from having to shout your business for all to hear! Attached the PDF or download from: www.firstgroup.com/safejourney European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010 has been designated as the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. As poverty and unemployment increases across the European Union, and as progress in the UK looks more and more uncertain, the European Year provides an opportunity to refocus anti-poverty policy both in the UK and across Europe.
The Poverty Alliance, and the other anti-poverty networks in the UK, are keen to highlight the wide range of activities that are taking place in the UK to address poverty and social exclusion. We want to ensure that during the course of the European Year we are able to highlight those events and activities that raise the profile of poverty issues, that involve people with experience of exclusion and that will leave a lasting legacy of good practice and knowledge. We want to share with other organisations, including anti-poverty groups across Europe through the European Anti-Poverty Network, the kinds of events and actions that are being taken to address poverty. These actions can include seminars, workshops, conferences, new publications, demonstrations. We will put all the events on our website and will include updates on our enews, and will highlight them to the members of the Network across Europe. This form can be downloaded from our website. New Scotland-Wide Initiative Launched to Get Disabled People Connected Momentum have officially launched a unique new service this week which will take cutting-edge assistive technologies to into the homes of disabled people. Momentum’s Adapt and Assist programme will deliver the service to people in their own homes via a community volunteering network, which sees trained volunteers share their knowledge of the technologies and how these can be adapted to disabled people. Via a home-based tailored training programme service users will be given the skills and confidence that they need to use the high-end equipment, ranging from eye-response technology to head and mouth controlled mouse devices. For further information on Adapt and Assist, contact Garry Ryan, assistive technology coordinator on tel: 0141 952 6494 / email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it / www.momentumscotland.org Consultations, Surveys & Campaigns Consultation on Public Sector Equality Duty Specific Duties Inclusion Scotland are looking to submit a response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on Public Sector Equality Duty Specific Duties. The full consultation document can be found here - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/09/28154835/0 If you would like a brief summary of this, please contact us and we can provide you with one. We would be grateful if all responses can be sent to us by 24th December 2009 in order for us to collate them. Please send responses to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or telephone 0141 887 7058. Assisted Dying As you may know Margo MacDonald MSP’s Bill on Assisted Dying has now got sufficient signatures to be considered by a Committee of the Scottish Parliament. We are concerned that changes which could have a profound effect on how disabled people are viewed and treated by the NHS and wider society are being considered in a fairly one-sided atmosphere. Of course some people may support Margo’s Bill and we respect their viewpoint but Inclusion Scotland’s agreed policy is to oppose any change in the current law on suicide and/or assisted dying. That will mean talking to and writing to MSPs to make sure that they hear the alternative viewpoint. Please find enclosed a detailed briefing on disabled people and the history of euthanasia & Margo’s current proposals and their potential implications. We intend to expand the Contact 100 group on Assisted Suicide so please let us know if you wish to join it and we will keep you informed of the Bill’s progress and provide suggestions as to how you might help in lobbying at a local and national level. If you wish to join the group or have any comments or thoughts or the Bill please forward them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or telephone 0141 887 7058. European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) - let your voice be heard - Disability Action Plan There are approximately 50 million EU citizens who are disabled. They are one of the largest groups of citizens at a disadvantage. To improve this situation, the European Commission is preparing a new EU Disability Strategy for 2010 to 2020. Therefore, they put a questionnaire online, which everyone can fillin. The questionnaire asks for your opinion on the problems faced by disabled people and ways of solving them. We filled in the questionnaire ourselves and we noticed a problem. There is a section about Independent Living. However, the term "personal assistance" is not mentioned at all. The issues of community living and personal budget are raised, but personal assistance is left out. Therefore, we would like to ask you to use the comment field at the end of the questionnaire. You could write something like this: The absence of the term 'personal assistance' or questions relating to it are surprising. The Council of Europe Disability Action Plan ( action 8) states a clear objective (8viii) 'to promote schemes which will allow disabled people to employ personal assistants of their choice' . The right to personal assistance is also a crucial part of article 19 in the CRPD. All European strategies must ensure that the implementation of this right is prioritized to promote Independent Living and the self determination of disabled people. Personal assistance should be made available to all European Citizens who require it. To further its practical application ought to be a key part of the forthcoming European Action Plan rather than absent from it. To access the questionnaire click here. What do you think about SCVO? Please take a few moments to tell us your thoughts and opinions about the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO). We want to hear from as many people as possible so please pass this link on to your colleagues too. The survey can be completed anonymously, however if you leave your name you will be entered into a free prize draw to win a Scottish Food Box (like a hamper but more sustainable!). Your input will inform our future work and help us to be stronger together Hate Crime Marketing Survey We are a group of public and voluntary sector organisations working together to identify and eliminate unlawful discrimination, attacks and harassment and to promote good relations. A Hate Incident - is any incident perceived as such by you or any other person. Anyone can be the victim of a hate incident. Incidents perceived by any person to have been motivated by hatred, malice or prejudice of Race, Religion / Faith, Sexual Orientation, Transgender identity or Disability are recorded, monitored and investigated as hate incidents. We need your help with a deciding on what marketing materials for a campaign we are running to raise awareness of our work. This survey should take you about 5 minutes: http://www.survs.com/survey/3N9185810D For more information about our work visit www.stophateincentralscotland.org.uk NHS Lothian: Can you help us develop equality? 14th December 10am – 3.30pm The NHS in Lothian covers a huge variety of different communities, cultures and individuals. How do we make sure that NHS Lothian can meet the health and employment needs of such a diversity of people? If you have an interest in one or more of these areas: age, disability, gender, race, religious belief or sexual orientation, NHS Lothian would be delighted if you could attend this event as they would like to involve as broad a range of people as possible. The event is free. If you would like to book a place, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "Free Our People Now - Campaign for Deinstitutionalisation". Across Europe, thousands of disabled people still spend their lives inappropriately and unjustifiably segregated from society. With a severe lack, or complete absence, of community-based services in many European countries, untold numbers of disabled people have no access to quality alternatives to institutional care. The segregation of disabled people in long-stay residential institutions is in itself a violation of disabled people's human rights. We hope that this campaign finds your appreciation and invite you to follow the link below to sign it. http://www.enil.eu/enil/index.php?option=com_petbreak Signatures will be collected until the Freedom Drive 2011 and will be presented to the European Parliament as well as national and international authorities. Events & Training Third Citizenship Academy Annual Conference The third annual conference of the Citizenship Academy will be held at the Scottish parliament on Monday 14th December from 12 pm until 4 pm. The theme of the conference is Partnership Working and Active Citizenship and the Citizenship Academy is inviting disabled people and representatives of disabled people’s organisations to come along and take part. The conference will also launch the independent evaluation of the Citizenship Academy. The conference will start with a buffet lunch and an opportunity for networking from 12 pm until 1 pm. IF you are interested in attending, or would like more information, please contact William on 0131 346 9040 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Spaces are limited and, because of security at the parliament, you will need to have a confirmed booking to be able to attend. The event is free and the Citizenship Academy has a limited budget to pay for travel costs. An Uncertain Mix: Equality and Scottish Devolution 15th December, Scottish Parliament, Committee Room 6 "Has devolution helped to achieve a fairer Scotland? Would Scotland be a fairer place if the Scottish Parliament had greater equal opportunity powers?" Research commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggests that the Scottish Parliament’s impact in tackling inequality over the last ten years, while positive, has been limited. Uncertainty about the scope of devolved equal opportunity powers and limited accountability are seen as important barriers to progress. The Commission warmly invites you to hear more about these findings and to debate these issues with them. For more information click here. Public Appointments - Launch of free one-day course The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Commissioner for Public Appointments and Queen Margaret University are working together to increase the number of people who apply for board positions with our public bodies. We are creating a “pathway to public appointments” for everyone interested. The first step is to take part in an awareness raising and education programme being piloted from November 2009. The one-day courses will explain what public bodies are, what the board and individual board members do and give advice on how to apply for these posts. We are running pilots on: · Wednesday 20 January 2010 at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh · Wednesday 24 February 2010 at Highlands and Islands Enterprise Inverness (date to be confirmed) There are places for 20 people on each day. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis. The courses are free and travel and carer costs will be paid. For more information contact Karen Elder on 0131 718 6268 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Scottish Accessible Information Forum (SAIF) In-House Training Now Available Our in-house training courses are available for individual organisations. They include: Raising Awareness; Is It Accessible; Creating Accessible Documents; Sending Accessible Emails and Testing Website Accessibility. For more information or to discuss individual requirements contact Susan Burn at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Project Ability – Christmas Show Exhibition: 4 - 23 December 2009 Project Ability's annual ‘Xmas show' is a collection of new works, drawing, painting and craft, that have been produced over the past three months in our new workshop in Trongate 103. The ‘Xmas show' at Project Ability will combine work from all three workshop programmes; Aspire, Create and Connect. Artists from the workshop programme will display and sell craft in Project Ability's shop, alongside the work of Project Ability's tutors. For more information telephone 0141 552 2822 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Race Equality Conference The Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre Beardmore Street, Clydebank G81 Tuesday, 15 December 2009 The Scottish Government is committed to working in partnership with stakeholders and communities to tackle racism and achieve race equality in Scotland. We want Scotland to be a country where people can live, work and bring up their families without fear of discrimination. This conference aims to discuss and debate with delegates where we are and where we need to be on delivering race equality nationally and locally. We will also examine the theme of identity, with a particular focus on our National Outcome 13 “We take part in a strong, fair and inclusive identity.” To book a place at the free event contact Linda Bruce on 0131 474 9228 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |