If you are a non-disabled person like myself, you may never have given much thought to disability equality. 14th November - 20th December is Disability History Month here in the UK and having just completed our latest feature documentary 'FIGHTERS' exploring this topic, I want to use this opportunity to share the disability equality journey over the last 15 months as a non-disabled person creating this film.
OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR 'FIGHTERS'
There is fear around disability for non-disabled people, it's a topic that our contributors acknowledge in the film. The fear of doing something wrong often leads people to making the choice not to engage with disabled people or the disability equality issue. Back in August 2023 I was incredibly fortunate to connect with the incomparable Michael Grimmett on LinkedIn, Michael is widely admired for his work and advocacy in the disability equality world. We'd tried for many years to get a disability equality film into production, but had never quite found the right story or felt we had the knowledge to properly explore this topic. Seeing that Michael offered inclusion consulting work through his Comments Disabled organisation, we got in touch and asked if we could book in some time with him to answer some questions and help us better understand the subject matter with the hope of making our disability equality documentary a reality.
Michael has an infectious energy and his sense of humour instantly made me feel at ease. Lesson one was terminology and the correct terms to use are disabled or non-disabled. He also introduced me to the term 'ableism' which means prioritising the needs of non-disabled people and when you look at most situations in society you begin to see how prevelant ableist ways of thinking are. Non-disabled people are often the first and only consideration, with disabled people occasionally being an after thought.
This was very much the start of my personal disability equality journey, I'll jump ahead and say that even now I feel I've only scratched the surface of understanding this deeply important topic but this was the first of several light-switch moments during the production where I began to see the world very differently. Michael's guidance meant that when I was out and about I would take a moment to think things such as could a wheelchair user get in this building? Is there a ramp or only stairs? Is there an automatic door? How is a wheelchair user supposed to go down this pavement when the bins are out blocking it? How would a wheelchair user get off this train when there's no-one there with a ramp? As a non-disabled person it is truly mind-blowing when you start to recognise the prevalence of ableism in society that you have been unaware of for so many years.
For context there are currently around 14.6 Million disabled people in the UK, that's roughly 1 in 4 people. Now as Michael eloquently mentions in the film 'disability isn't just ramps and braille', it's a multi-faceted topic and once he'd agreed to come on board with the documentary he was insistent that although it would be impossible to truly cover the breadth of disability in a one hour feature, we needed to show the diversity of disability as much as possible. Disability is often divided in to six different areas:-
Physical or Visual Impairments
Hearing Impaired or Deaf
Learning Disability
Autism and Neurodiverse
Long Term Health Conditions
Mental Health
Matt Edwards on his way for a sunset boxing session at the beach, you can see his prosthetic leg and there is a golden orange sunset coming in over a small grey concrete wall.
We love using sports as a vehicle for exploring important social issues and in early conversations identified boxing as a great sport to use to explore this topic. Early on we decided on the name 'FIGHTERS' for the documentary, for the boxing reference but also as it perfectly summed up the daily lives of disabled people and their constant fight to be included in society. Through Michael's network we met Matt Edwards, an incredibly talented boxer who had a lower leg amputation after a road traffic accident. Matt dreamt of becoming professional but his prosthetic leg, although not impacting his boxing ability, meant he was constantly denied an assesment for an amateur boxing license, the first step in his journey. This was the perfect story to showcase the everyday experience of disabled people, wanting to be a part of society and contribute but being prevented by ableist viewpoints and systems.
Through Matt we met pioneering boxing coach Christopher McEwen, one of Matt's leading supporters. Chris' approach to inclusion can be summed up in his line in the film 'You want to do it, how can we do it? What can we do to assist you? That's what should be the questions and answers, not, no'. Chris invited me to film at his boxing club in Pembroke, where every Thursday he offers inclusive boxing sessions for anyone to get involved with. We all know the benefits that sport offers, physically, mentally, socially, but to see what Chris' inclusive boxing sessions meant to these young disabled people who had likely never felt included in sport before was an incredible experience.
Chris has worked tirelessly to develop the world of disability boxing, a non-contact programme where everyone, including people wtih down syndrome, aspergers, autism or are wheelchair users or are blind or deaf can all take part in boxing training together, enjoy the benefits and friendships of group physical activity, improve their boxing skills and fitness levels and work towards gaining coaching qualifications. Everyone was welcomed through Chris' doors and ensured that they were part of this club. It was a truly special experience to spend time with the Pembroke Dock club and Chris is someone I hugely admire and now a big role model for my approach to inclusion.
A few months into production and I very much thought I'd grasped this topic and understood the lived experience of disabled people, however I could not have been more wrong. Michael had long been saying I needed to join him on a social event without any cameras and just observe what the experience was like for a disabled person trying to take part in an everyday social event. With one of Michael's close friends taking part in a white collar boxing match, this seemed the perfect opportunity for us to dress up and hit the town.
What followed will be a night I will never forget, sadly for all the wrong reasons. Our one goal for the evening was simply to join the group table and watch a boxing match, which should have all been very simple. We rendevouzed in a nearby hotel which Michael had booked an accesible room to stay in after the event. This was when I learned that not all accessible facilities are created equally and the vital importance of speaking to those with lived experience when you are trying to create accessible facilities (you can hire Michael via his LinkedIn here... https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgrimmett-disabilityinclusionspeaker/?originalSubdomain=uk)
We arrived at the boxing and searched for the accessible entrance, which happened to be in the smokers area and was completely crowded. Eventually working in our way in tables and chairs were tightly packed meaning Michael in his chair couldn't get to the other side of the room to join his friends at their table. Speaking with event staff and asking what we could do, we were suggested to stay put by the entrance and watch from here, nothing more. This is where Michael's true fighter spirit revealed itself, undettered by the situation he headed straight through the crowd not letting any obstacle (human or otherwise) stop him from reaching his friends. Throughout the night bouncers constantly came up to us saying we were in the way and causing a nusiance, this was prime example of society being disabled rather than the individual. Would it have been too much thought and effort to lay the room out with pathways a little bit wider so that they accommodate a wheelchair user? As a non-disabled person how would you feel to be told you can't come in, watch from the doorway.
To finish the night by seeing someone physically push Michael's chair out of the way so that they could have a shorter route to the bar rather than make the effort to go round was nothing short of harrowing. (This is also not mentioning the weeks of back and forth emails Michael had with the event company sending several ID documents to prove he was eligible for an accessible ticket). Michael as always was absolutely right, I hadn't even begun to understand that daily fight that disabled people experience and this night gave me a glimpse into the reality of life for many disabled people and a firsthand look at the constant ableism they encounter.
Next he introduced me to Esi Hardy, a fellow disability inclusion expert. In her interview she explains the concept of 'weathering' where all these little battles and injustices disabled people experience weather on them, to the point where they simply don't have the energy or desire to go out of the house any more and thus we see less and less disabled people on the street. Following Esi we interviewed Isaac Harvey who had recently received an MBE for his disability equality and media production work, who amongst many other topics enlightented me to the world of accessible content. This is an incredibly complex and far reaching topic, but he guided me on the first steps to think about how you can present your content in a way that everyone can engage with it (and in an increasingly competitive media landscape you want to be accessible to the broadest audience possible). Whether that be adding captions to your videos for deaf people (captions are in the native language, subtitles are for foreign languages), alt-text in your Instagram posts or Image Descriptions on LinkedIn to describe the visual content you are presenting for blind people, it's all about giving your audience the choice whether or not they want to engage with your content, rather than making it inaccessible to them. This is an area we're deeply interested in exploring further and will be researching in the coming months.
I was also very fortunate to meet an incredible woman called Shreen McLean, a former police officer injured in the line of duty. Her disabilities are mostly invisible and we explored the challenges she faces in having to prove she has a disability. Shreen is a proud advocate of the Sunflower Laynard disability scheme, look out for them, they are becoming more and more used. It's a simple way to communicate to people that you have an invisible disability and therefore when you engage with a person wearing a sunflower lanyard to take the time to consider their needs and what is necessary to ensure that it's a successful and productive interaction.
We were very fortuante to have three incredible sports stars join the produciton. Three-time Paralympic Champion Peter Hull, MBE, Jodie Ounsley (a.k.a 'Fury the Gladiator') and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. They covered a multitude of different issues and especially the 'Purple Pound' which is the untapped spend power of disabled people in the UK. (The colour purple is often associated with disability). That spending power is approximately £250 Billion. Now it can be argued that it is an ableist mindset to make your business more inclusive just to get disabled people's spending power, but as the film argues every business needs to make money and if you are only doing it for that it's better than not doing it all. Business should be inclusive because it's the right thing to do, but if you need to use the £250 Billion figure to persuade the board to make things more accessible, its a powerful number that's hard to ignore.
There hasn't been a day in my life where I've woken up and thought 'today I'm going to make things worse for disabled people' and I'm sure for the vast majority of people this is the also the norm but I also wasn't thinking of what I could do to make things better. 'Ableism' (prioritising the needs of non-disabled people) is very much the status quo and largely originates from this lack of thought and it wasn't until we started producing 'FIGHTERS' that my mindset shifted to be thinking 'what can I do to make things better for disabled people'. There's an extraordinary amount of work and research I need to do to be thinking fully inclusively but this film has been the switch in my mind to start thinking in a more inclusive way and I very much hope that in watching it other non-disabled people will be able to have that same switch go in their head.
There are no words to adequately sum up my thanks to everyone involved in 'FIGHTERS' for being so generous with their time and energy to make the film what it is. We are all incredibly excited to share the film very soon and in the meantime if you would like more information please do contact me on the email below...
The 'FIGHTERS' trailer is avaiable below with captions...
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