Basic daily rights under threat for 20,000+ UK citizens!
Penny ILF | 18.12.2011 14:28 | Health | Repression | Social Struggles
How would you feel if it was the case that you, or your loved ones, had the most fundamental aspects of your lives constrained and controlled? Do you take for granted the minutiae of freedom in your life? Over 21, 000 people are confronting the terrifying reality of losing such freedoms. Including myself. We have to call on our allies to support the campaign to make the coalition government rethink their attack on us. If this funding is stopped we risk living in worse conditions and with less freedoms than convicted criminals.
Who are we? We are 20,000+ disabled people who have been deemed 'severely' disabled and we receive funding from The Independent Living Fund (ILF). This enables us to have choice and control over our lives with an ethic of 'what we want, when we want'. The money can be used to employ people directly, under our control, or in many flexible ways that suit each individual. With paid assistance we can have those choices and rights. Even down to when we use the toilet, and who assists us.
The ILF came out of disability civil rights movements of the 80s onwards. Disabled activists worked hard for these rights which made fundamental changes to our lives, and to many disabled people since. Disabled people are not an alien race; we are you, we are who you know, your friends, family, colleagues. Professor Hawking supports our fight - yes, he is disabled! And their are many others who support us.
In general, it appears the current government sees disabled people as an enemy of their capitalist money-driven policies. They may have assumed we were 'weak' and without a voice. Easy targets to scrape back what is in reality a small amount of money.
The government claim that the ILF pot will be diverted to social services - but it will not be ring-fenced, as it is now. The is no guarantees how this will be spent, and we are dubious, with good reason, that it will not come back to us.
But we will not be silent. Those of us who can, will fight back, for ourselves and for all of the disabled community this affects.
While thinking about the many freedoms, tiny or significant, you have today, going about your life - PLEASE pledge to sign the petition below. We want to get 100,000 - with your help!
With many thanks.
Click on this link.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/24368
The ILF came out of disability civil rights movements of the 80s onwards. Disabled activists worked hard for these rights which made fundamental changes to our lives, and to many disabled people since. Disabled people are not an alien race; we are you, we are who you know, your friends, family, colleagues. Professor Hawking supports our fight - yes, he is disabled! And their are many others who support us.
In general, it appears the current government sees disabled people as an enemy of their capitalist money-driven policies. They may have assumed we were 'weak' and without a voice. Easy targets to scrape back what is in reality a small amount of money.
The government claim that the ILF pot will be diverted to social services - but it will not be ring-fenced, as it is now. The is no guarantees how this will be spent, and we are dubious, with good reason, that it will not come back to us.
But we will not be silent. Those of us who can, will fight back, for ourselves and for all of the disabled community this affects.
While thinking about the many freedoms, tiny or significant, you have today, going about your life - PLEASE pledge to sign the petition below. We want to get 100,000 - with your help!
With many thanks.
Click on this link.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/24368
Penny ILF
e-mail:
penergy16@googlemail.com