This week, Brooke welcomes Jamie and Celia on Disabled and Proud's Disability Pride Month special. They discuss their personal experiences with disability pride, unlearning ableism, and the challenges faced by the disabled community.

Jamie shares a journey of overcoming internalised ableism and finding empowerment through meaningful employment, while Celia emphasises the importance of corporate responsibility in promoting disability inclusion. They highlight the need for tangible action, accountability, and ongoing efforts to create a more inclusive society. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Disability Pride is about change, hope, and amplifying diverse voices to celebrate the diversity of disability experiences.
• Disability Pride is not about enjoying being disabled but accepting oneself and being proud of the community's strengths and achievements.
• Unlearning ableism promotes inclusivity by addressing the impact of ableism on individuals and providing tools to navigate and challenge it.
• Overcoming disability is not a realistic goal, as disability is a part of one's identity and should be accepted rather than overcome.
• Corporate responsibility during Disability Pride Month should focus on tangible actions, such as running anti-ableism audits, supporting communities, and investing in disability inclusion beyond tokenism.

BEST MOMENTS

"Disability pride is about celebrating the work that's going on. So actually, I'm not celebrating Pride to the fullest, not because of my own fault, but because again, society isn't taking it on board."

"I think for me that is the pride because I think if I didn't get into this role, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today. Like I probably would have out alive myself a long time ago."

"It's not my accountability and responsibility. It's your burden of accountability and responsibility. And I think the natural tendency to applaud someone halfway through, you know they've done the bare minimum."

"It's not about tokenism, flying a flag. Great, it's a starting point. As I said to Jamie the other day, I'm not going to applaud you until you've finished."

VALUABLE RESOURCES

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/disabled-and-proud/id1621152878

HOST BIO

Disabled and Proud is the show that brings listeners a different perspective on disability. Each week this podcast highlights an awesome disabled guest speaking about their own disability; why they are proud to be disabled and why they are proud to be themselves. 

The conversations in this show will look at what challenges these amazing people face socially, mentally, physically and life in general. This show is raw, open, honest, funny, welcoming and educational. 

Disabled & Proud does exactly what it says on the tin! And whilst we are creating this space for disabled people to be unashamedly themselves, without the need to conform to society, this is also not about toxic positivity. This show will be shining a big, bright light on disability without it being “Paralympic or pity”. 

As you will hear disability is WHOLE, COMPLETE & PERFECT and whilst the topic of disability can be quite heavy - and we definitely don't shy away from the bad days - this podcast is also about having fun too! Our aim is to play a part in reclaiming the word disability - turning it from inadequacy to perfection!