Regional Equality Network for UCU's Day of Disability Action Wednesday 24 November 1.30pm

Please join us to learn more about disability rights and to gain a better understanding of issues facing our disabled colleagues and students.  

This session will be a blend of: input from guest speakers who are experienced campaigners in disability action, plus shared experiences and plans of action from our branches.

We also hope to hear of the lived experience of our colleagues across the region – see below, we are looking for grassroots contributions in this and future sessions.  

Keynote speaker: Rob Murthwaite from Stand Up to Racism NE, formerly a leading member of the UCU Disabled Members Committee and a member of the national steering committee of DPAC. Further speaker tbc. 

We would love to hear from our members with lived experience in this area: if disabled members, or those with academic or personal experience in this area would like to talk about their lived experiences, please get in touch. Regional Equality reps will happily support you preparing any input (this can be very low key, just chatting, no PPT essential!) or in speaking on the day. If you’d like to offer to contribute, even for a short input, that would be great, please email Karen Lockney -by 10th November –  karen.lockney@cumbria.ac.uk (Regional Secretary, University of Cumbria Equalities Officer) in the first instance. 

As a Regional Equalities Network, we are keen to ensure our sessions include input from colleagues with lived experience of the equalities issues we are all working on, and we will support you in ways which may be helpful to you – please get in touch about this or any future events – email karen.lockney@cumbria.ac.uk. Please also reach out to other colleagues, including non-members and let them know we are seeking to strengthen our collective voice by hearing directly from those with experiences to share, providing support where necessary to empower people to share their wealth of knowledge. 

We are also committed to matching our learning in these sessions with meaningful action, and there will be breakout groups on the days for participants to share ideas, decide on take away messages and plans for action, and these will inform follow up events.