Our CEO Liz Sayce will be talking today at the RI World Congress in Edinburgh.
Watch Liz's speech and Q&A session (she is the third speaker)
Liz is speaking on how disabled people can define our own experience and create our own knowledge - in order to find better solutions for the future. Through history it's been vital for communities to define their own reality - and to show that the way things are is not 'natural', it can be changed. As Nelson Mandela said 'poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings'.
At Disability Rights UK we have advice, information and practical projects run by and for disabled people. Now - through DRILL - we also have disabled people creating knowledge, in co-production with researchers.
We will soon be announcing the first research projects being done under DRILL - a Big Lottery funded 5 million programme of research led by disabled people. We have been thrilled by the number of great ideas received and are struck by the number of proposals from people who often have little voice - for instance, people with dementia, or learning difficulties or mental health issues.
DRILL is run by a partnership of organisations across the UK: Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales and Disability Action Northern Ireland.