GDA’s Vision requires change and collaboration from the highest level. While our programmes build disabled people’s capacity and confidence to speak out and share their expertise, our partnership work builds relationships and opportunities for dialogue, involvement and co-design of policies and plans, to deliver the change we need.
Disabled people are three times more likely to live in poverty, for a whole range of reasons: barriers to employment and fair work, as well as a pay gap barriers in education make it harder for us to gain the same skills and qualifications as our non-disabled peers additional costs of being disabled, including higher […]
Accessing the right Health and Social Care Services can be the difference not just between life and death, but between having a life or ‘just an existence’. Disabled people, and people with long term conditions, are more likely to rely on a range of Health and Social Care services in order to live our lives, […]
GDA was founded to support disabled people’s participation in decisions that affect us – and from our first ever big event in 2003 when we brought 50+ disabled people together with planners from NHS and Social Work to share our experiences, priorities and concerns for Health and Social Care Integration, GDA members have unwaveringly pursued […]
Disabled people face a range of barriers to accessing and retaining work and volunteering opportunities, including inaccessible recruitment processes, lack of practical support, lack of understanding, prejudice and discrimination. In Glasgow, only 45% of disabled people aged 16-65 are in work, compared to 67% of our non-disabled peers. Alongside our 1-to-1 and group Employability supports, […]
Social Isolation and Loneliness are increasingly recognised as a public health crisis, and disabled people are twice as likely to face severe loneliness, according to NHS Scotland. GDA’s programmes are all about bringing people together, by removing the barriers that cause this isolation: lack of accessible transport, support, and opportunities for social connection. Social connections […]
Barriers in the world around us are at the root of disabled people’s exclusion and inequality. That means that by listening to our lived experience, co-designing and doing things differently, we can create a world that is barrier-free and level the playing field so disabled people can work, study, participate in all the things non-disabled […]
See also our Voices and Peer Support page for more examples of how GDA peer groups – Young Disabled People, Older Disabled People, GDA’s Women’s Network, BME member’s network and LGBT Disabled People Space – are shaping and contributing to decisions that affect them.
