Marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Wednesday 3 December marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD).

IDPWD was established in 1992 by the United Nations to celebrate people living with disabilities and serves as a reminder of the ongoing need to remove barriers and foster a world where people with disabilities can live full, equal and productive lives.

This year’s theme is ‘Fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress’, bringing attention to the challenges and barriers disabled people and their households face:

• They are more likely to live in poverty
• They continue to face discrimination in employment and receive lower wages
• Social protection systems are uneven in coverage and inadequate when considering extra disability-related costs
• Many disabled people’s experiences within care and support systems continue to be marked by the denial of their dignity, autonomy and agency.

The 3 main themes of social development – removing poverty, promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all, and supporting social integration –  are all connected and we need to create an environment that will allow us to pursue them all to create more equal and accessible communities.

Brighton & Hove’s Accessible City Strategy

Brighton & Hove’s Accessible City Strategy outlines our vision to become a council that is welcoming and inclusive to all its residents and reaffirms our commitment to put accessibility at the heart of how we think, work, design and deliver our services.

It was developed with the guidance of disabled people’s organisations and disabled individuals within the council and the city, namely the Disability Panel and the Wider Reference Group.

The strategy builds on our existing work, while acknowledging that we must seek opportunities to go above and beyond the legal minimum wherever possible to achieve our aims.

The guiding principles of this 5-year strategy include following a social model of disability, which says that people are disabled by barriers in society, rather than by their impairment or difference.

It also considers neurodiversity, mental health, non-visible disabilities and the intersectionality of disabled people in the city.

We recognise that disabled people can hold multiple identities, which creates additional layers of exclusion, and this is crucial to being able to effectively improve accessibility.

You can read the Accessible City Strategy on our website.

A city everyone can enjoy

Councillor Mitchie Alexander, Cabinet member for Communities, Equalities, Public Health and Adult Social Care, said: “International Day of Persons with Disabilities is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of people who live with disabilities.

“It is also an opportunity for us to reflect on how we are doing as a council, in our mission to become an Accessible City.

“There has been a lot of progress in and around the city over the past years, but we are very aware it is not everywhere, and much more needs to be done.

“Nearly one fifth of people living in our city lives with a long-term illness or a disability, whether it is visible or non-visible, and it is really vital that we continue to build a city that works for us all – and where everyone is allowed to succeed, thrive and live their very best lives.”

Easy read hub 

Last year, we launched a new easy read information hub on our website to ensure that Brighton & Hove residents with learning disabilities and their parents, carers and support staff can access key information about council services.  

Easy read is an accessible way of sharing information with people with learning disabilities. It uses easy words, short, jargon-free sentences, large text and pictures. 

The easy read information hub was created following the publication of the Brighton & Hove Adult Learning Disability Strategy, also known as The Big Plan, in 2021. This was co-produced with the learning disability community and local partners.