Manifesto 2022: Disabled People Make Glasgow Too!

Disabled people face barriers, inequality and poorer outcomes across all areas of life. Lack of understanding and inadequate resources prevent us from accessing vital services and information; inaccessible housing, transport, and environments mean we are unable to participate in our communities; lack of equal opportunities in education, employment; civic participation and social connections increase poverty of income and opportunity and mean we cannot make the contributions we want to make.

These are inequalities that Glasgow City Council has the power to immediately mitigate and reduce – working with DPOs!

Exacerbated by austerity and previously described as a “Human Catastrophe” by the United Nations, these inequalities have been supercharged by the Covid-19 pandemic, with responses eroding rights and leaving disabled people behind.

Find out more in GDA’s Covid-19 report ‘Supercharged: a human catastrophe’.

For decades, disabled people have been striving to influence change: to eradicate barriers, accelerate equality and realise our Human Rights. It is clearer now more than ever that disabled people’s equality will benefit the whole of society.

Disabled people and people with long term conditions make up at least 25% of Glasgow’s population. Disabled people make Glasgow too!

The pandemic has taken a gruelling toll on those who were already worst off. We must act now to supercharge disabled people’s voices, and lived experience expertise: to mitigate new and widened inequalities, and ensure disabled people are never again left behind.

• For too long disabled people have been told our priorities and needs are too expensive.
• For too long we have been made to feel like a burden and that we should reduce dependency on the state.
• This needs to change.

Our Manifesto asks have been co-designed with disabled people. They highlight the key inequalities facing disabled people in our city.

Read the full manifesto here