Petition Tag - disability

The UK Government plans to making drastic changes to the Disability Living Allowance including taking away many of the current travel concessions thus leaving many disabled UK Citizen's housebound.

Whilst we at the National Liberal Party would understand a "means" test to assist in stopping benefit fraud, we oppose the changes being put forward by the UK Government and would ask you to support us on getting these changes stopped.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dla-reform-consultation-easyread.pdf

View petition

While growing up, Ias a disabled person, experienced quite a few 'differences' in my education because of my apparatus (a wheelchair & walker). I was treated like an outsider by my classmates and a bother by 2 or 3 of the faculty members . College was surprizingly similar...

I would like to propose a change in the way society looks at people with disabilities. We are not to be stared at by little children, forced to use entrances at the sides or back of buildings, or be labeled as mentally deficient or diseased.

I'd like to see an education system in which children are taught about disabilities and accept people with them.

View petition

We want to change the laws in parliament. If a person is forced to leave work due to illness or injury they only get unemployment sick benefits for 15 weeks, yet if a person quits for the right reason they get up to 50 weeks unemployment benefits.

It takes Canada Pension Plan over four months to decide on whether or not a person is even eligible for C.P.P. Unemployment benefits should continue at least until C.P.P has made a decision.

View petition

Somerset Sight is the only local, independent charity to support blind and visually impaired people across your county.

We have been helping thousands of people affected by significant sight loss across Somerset to lead independent lives since 1919. Our Volunteer Befriending Service, which has been running for over 15 years, has been extremely successful in tackling the isolation many visually impaired people face.

For many of the 300 plus people who benefit from this service every year their visit from one of our specially trained volunteers is the only time they have any social contact. As you can imagine it is a lifeline to them and they simply could not cope without it.

View petition

Current immigration laws in Australia prevent people with a disability migrating to Australia because it is presumed that they will be an excessive cost to the Australian community. People are judged hypothetically on what somebody with their condition or disability would be eligible to receive.

They are not given the opportunity to demonstrate how they could offset possible health costs and their personal circumstances are not taken into account. As a result, hundreds of Australian families are torn apart and permanently separated as applicants applying through the family stream are still required to undergo extensive health checks. The current health requirements are therefore detrimental to Australian citizens who also have to undergo the trauma of being separated from loved ones.

The current immigration system is therefore indirectly discriminatory and at odds with Australia's international human rights obligations.

View petition

Earlier this year Reading Borough Council instigated a number of changes to disabled parking bays and the times during which they can be accessed.

These changes include restricting access to the majority of the on road bays immediately surrounding the town centre so that they may only be accessed from 11am to 4pm and again after 7pm.

The roads most affected are St Mary's Butts, West Street and Friar Street

This has made it unreasonably difficult for many disabled people to access the shops and other facilities in the town.

A council representative has claimed that the the majority of people are happy with the changes, this is obviously true as the majority of people are not disabled and have little or no understanding of the real life ramifications of these changes for disabled people.

Examples of things that are now virtually impossible for many disabled people to do include:

A drink out with work friends/ family after work,
A meal before seeing a show at the local theatre
Early morning shopping to beat the crowds
Staying in town after shopping to eat out
Getting to one of the opticians who has served the community for many years
Getting to a number of well known high street shops

The current proposals to resolve the access issues appears to be to force all blue badge holders into wheelchairs of some form (Shop mobility) regardless of their individual needs and to expect the local shops/traders to cover the cost.

With economic downturn comes cuts, and the proposals leave disabled people reliant upon the funding of retailers/traders and upon charities. If they decide to remove the funding in the future, disabled people will be yet again unable to use the town and its facilities

The only long term way to ensure access to the town for disabled people during the same periods as able bodied people is to provide appropriately placed kerbside parking that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

View petition

On Friday 12th August, RMIT decided to discontinue the program, the only disability specific degree course in Victoria.

There are thousands of people living in Victoria who have a disability, with a relatively small pool of workers to support them. The cessation of this course will broaden the gap of an already under-qualified and under-manned work force.

View petition

The UK Disabled Community needs to send a clear and unequivocal message in one unified voice to call on the Coalition Government to see us all as equal members of society and not treat us as a tool to steal our disability benefits and services to bail out the Country in this time of Financial Crisis.

Can we set a precedence to get 1 million signatures so that the Coalition Government will have no option but to take note of us and not just ignore or deflect our arguments & comments and to stop building this climate of hate against disabled people.

Please leave a question for your Local MP to pose to the Coalition Government, which we will add to the Petition when we deliver it to No.10.

View petition

This petition calls on all Australians to demand reform to the Better Start for Children with Disability (Better Start) initiative.

Better Start aims to increase access to early intervention for children with developmental disabilities and comes into place on 1 July 2011.

Under the scheme, children up to the age of 6 may access up to $12,000 for treatments, while Medicare rebates will be available to older children.

The Better Start initiative excludes thousands of Australian children with developmental disabilities as eligibility is limited to five diagnoses only; sight and hearing impairments, Cerebral Palsy, Down’s Syndrome and Fragile X Syndrome. Children with Autism are already able to access a similar level of support through the Helping Children with Autism program.

Children excluded from Better Start comprise those with rare conditions, genetic syndromes and chromosomal abnormalities, acquired brain injuries and other physical disabilities, and those without a diagnosis. These children have comparable early intervention needs and many are able to prove the beneficial impact of such treatment. Already among the most marginalised in Australia with poorer access to treatments, research and support, these children will miss out on the help they critically need in the early years of development.

This petition calls on the Federal Government to remove the inequalities of the Better Start policy by adopting a needs-based model. Eligibility for Better Start should be determined by the functional aspects of the child’s disability, the level of impairment and how the impairment affects the child. This approach complies with recommendations contained in the Draft Productivity Commission Report on Disability Care and Support.

The Australian Government must give all Australian children with developmental disabilities a Better Start to life, not just a select few.

View petition

DWP Tribunal Reconsideration Project with Her Majesty's Courts (& now Tribunal Service). Incapacity BenefitS Transition Project. DBD420 "Look again" at DLA Mobility/Care +/or attendance allowance Project.

It is time automatic rejection of claims by some or all of DWP / Benefits & Credits assessment officers ceased. It is time appeals be facilitated and not frustrated to avoid descendants & taking of responsibility by the Departments. Reconsideration erodes rights, wastes time to avoid legal challenges, and all these practices combined deny many vulnerable (including non-disabled/incapacitated) claimants and families access to their lawful entitlements.

The emphasis and responsibility for correct assessment lies with DWP & Benefits and Credits, not with the claimant. Automatic award at lowest levels ("chancing the arm") is equally deplorable. A government which should protect the vulnerable should not itself endanger them to exploitation, nor itself exploit such persons / families.

Civil Servants are paid well to do a job well, not to achieve 'statistics' and being able to place of quantity and lip-service over quality must cease. If quality increases then the Unions will be able to further justify the need to stop cuts in the Civil Service.

Get it right first time. A maxim is fine, but the culture must adopt and accept, not merely recite it.

View petition

B.C.'s current income assistance rates for people with disabilities fall well below the poverty line.

The current benefits program does not provide sufficient financial assistance for recipients to obtain adequate food, shelter and clothing or to obtain supports for their meaningful participation in community. The program offers limited support for people who wish to find work.

People with disabilities face serious systemic and attitudinal barriers when it comes to accessing employment opportunities and earning an independent income.

As a result, many adults with disabilities require income support to meet basic living costs and to compensate for the extra costs involved in living with a disability. The social effects of poverty, including isolation, loneliness, and alienation from community life, contribute to both physical and mental health problems.

The savings created by limiting access to disability supports create greater costs in other parts of the social service system. Keeping people with disabilities poor is a false economy!

View petition

This petition has been created by members of Lanarkshire ACE who are worried that some proposals by the coalition government to review benefits levels may adversely impact on people with learning disabilities, autism and aspergers. These reviews includes changes to the Disability Living Allowance.

View petition

Centers for Independent Living came into existence in the 1970s led by Ed Roberts to give people with disabilities a choice on how they want to run their life and an opportunity to live in the most integrated setting as possible. There are over 400 centers in the US alone and they provide a unique service people with abilities can't get anywhere else.

Our services include but aren't limited to Advocacy, Peer Support, Information and Referral, and Independent Living Skills Training. Centers for Independent Living staff consist of at least 51% people with disabilities and is governed by a board of advocates and consumers who understand people with disabilities need for self-respect, self-reliance and independence.

View petition

Certain Policy directives in the Ontario Disability Support program and Certain Legislation under the ODSP act actually do not support people as the program title suggests, but in fact punishes people and keeps them in poverty.

It also discriminates against single benefit units with no dependants.

Workers, Managers and Offices across the province of Ontario, all have different interpretations of the directives and act.

Workers' mistakes cause undue financial and emotional hardship on clients.

Their is also no accountability.

View petition

Disability rights activist Peter Gichura, who has lived in Croydon, UK since 2001, has received a Removal Order from the Home Office, which will force him to return to Kenya and leave the life he has built in the UK.

Despite the difficulties Peter has faced as an asylum seeker, he has spent his time positively, successfully completing NVQ level 4 in accounting and doing voluntary work and activities with Payday men’s network, WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities), Leonard Cheshire Disability, Westminster Action Network on Disability, and his local church. Peter is an active and well-respected member of his local community, with many friends and networks in the UK.

Peter was instrumental in establishing a disabled persons’ organisation in Kenya, advocating for the rights of disabled street sellers. He fled in 2001 to escape anti-Kikuyu persecution against disability activists.

Whilst in the UK, Peter has made good use of his skills, by being involved in campaigns to improve access to public services for disabled people, including London buses.

Peter has made a significant contribution to the disabled people’s movement in the UK. As an asylum seeker, he was detained in Harmondsworth in 2006, without accessible washing and toilet facilities, not given the correct medication, and subjected to painful body searches. With the support of WinVisible and Payday, Peter challenged the Home Office and Kalyx, the company that runs Harmondsworth detention centre, using the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

In May 2008 the Court of Appeal made a precedent ruling on his DDA case -- that all disabled people in custody before December 2006 do have the protection of anti-discrimination legislation.

During the plane journey to the UK in 2001 Peter was manhandled, causing his spinal injury to worsen. He has gone from using crutches to using a wheelchair, and relies on medical treatment without which he would die. In 2006, he applied for asylum on that basis: "As someone with spinal injury I am vulnerable to chronic kidney infection and need sanitary living conditions to survive – but there is no running water where I am from in Nyahururu, Kenya. I cannot afford medical treatment – and there is no free healthcare." Expert evidence confirmed this but was ignored, and Peter’s claim was turned down.

Removal now would put Mr Gichura’s health and life at serious and immediate risk.

Above all, Peter has built his life in the UK, has contributed to society through his active commitment to voluntary and community groups. Peter has the skills and experience that will help him to build a career, he has a job offer, and will thus be able to support himself financially if he is given leave to remain in the UK.

View petition

Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres (DUWCs) is an organisation established in the former coalfields area of North and East Derbyshire in the early 1980s as part of a TUC initiative to support people becoming unemployed.

The Centres opened offices throughout North Derbyshire as the excellent reputation of the organisation spread. In the current recessionary times the free, independent welfare rights advice provided is needed as much as ever.

View petition

The Irish government budget says the disability benefits will be cut. DFI (disability federation of Irelnd) were clear from the outset that people with disabilities should not experience a disproportionate level of hardship compared to other vulnerable groups. This is reinforced by the fact that one in three people with disabilities are already at risk of poverty.

The Government’s announcement to cut disabled people’s income by €8.30 (4.1%) per week is a direct attack on the most vulnerable who for no fault of their own are dependent on the State for an adequate income. This is in addition to the 2% cut already made to disability payments through the abolishment of the Christmas bonus this year.

There has been a clear acknowledgement that people with disabilities experience extra everyday costs arising from living with a disability; however, this appears to have been completely forgotten about in framing Budget 2010.

View petition

Removing the Mobility Element of Disability Living Allowance for people in Care Homes.

This will have a huge and regressive impact on the independence of thousands of disabled people. Disabled people in means-tested residential care are already forced to manage on incredibly low incomes, often receiving just £22 a week in the form of a Personal Allowance to meet all of their personal costs.

DLA mobility component provides absolutely vital support for people to remain independent and to meet some of the additional costs of getting out. The average payment per person the government plans to cut is £33.40, although actual payments to each individual are either on the lower level of £18.95 per week or the higher level of £49.85

Removing DLA mobility component from people in residential care will have a devastating impact. People will not have the money to meet additional mobility costs such as a powered wheelchair, accessible taxis or a Motability car and this will seriously impact on their independence.

Whilst in some cases limited transport provision is included in residential care fees, this covers only communal or very limited independent transport. It does not provide the freedom offered by mobility DLA. This will result in people being trapped in Residential Care Homes.

We estimate that over 74,000 people will be affected by this cut

View petition

We have redesigned the look of the International Accessible Symbols so they include a gender and no longer portray people in wheelchairs as sexless and inferior.

Throughout the world we have standard signs that indicate where bathroom facilities are located. Typically, the shape of a female or male figure mark the entrance of bathroom doors. When there is an accessible bathroom, for those of us who are handicapable, the door and stall are marked with a wheelchair symbol. Although these symbols seem to carry no more importance than letting people know where the facilities are, they actively relay a message to their huge audience. We, as in the human race, absorb so much information that shape our perceptions on a daily basis thanks to the millions of signs and images we view repeatedly.

Although you’ve seen these signs multiple times, take a closer look. Every wheelchair symbol is substantially out of proportion to that of the adult male and female shapes. The head of the wheelchair symbol only reaches as high as the hand of both figures. This is demeaning and unrealistic. In the “Family Restroom Sign” the child depicted is as small as the person in a wheelchair. This definitely plants a seed of inequality and perpetuates stigmas attached to our differently-abled population, and specifically, women who are differently-abled.

It’s somewhat understandable that whoever made this design was trying to say that, wheelchair or not, we are just men and women. On the contrary, when you see the icon representing wheelchair accessibility, it looks like an inferior and sexless body melded into a wheelchair. This symbol reinforces and perpetuates social stigmas placed on men and women in wheelchairs everyday.

I am a woman who rolls on four wheels. I am not a woman who walks on two legs, the female figurine is misrepresentative. Until people see me as a “woman” in a wheelchair, and not only as a sexless wheelchair person, I will forever be disregarded and considered inferior by some. So many stigmas are placed on all walks of life that it can be defeating, at times, to rise above the banter.

Changing our current International Symbol for Accessibility is the most effortless way to plant a seed and begin remedying the blatant disregard some people have toward those who are differently-abled. We’ve designed a gender specific accessibility symbol that depicts a female, or male, icon seated in a wheelchair next to a standing female, or male, icon.

The simple visual message, “Accessible to a woman/man, in a wheelchair”, will painlessly inject some human qualities into our current sexless and inferior accessibility symbol. We can make life a little more effortless for humankind with a few small adjustments in our environment.

Be it a physical, racial or cultural difference, we are all human, we are all women, we are all men. We all share a universal set of emotions. We all smile, laugh, cry, yell, sleep, eat and exist. Some of us walk, and some of us roll.

The human mind is like a sponge, it constantly sucks up and stores information. We are directly influenced by these small bits of information, whether we like it or not. Let’s take this fact as an opportunity to make a difference. Every time someone’s eye glances by our gender specific signage, it plants a seed of equality, empowerment and positivity.

View petition

ESA or Employment Support Allowance is the benefit which has replaced the old incapacity benefit.

Thousands of disabled people are being transferred from incapacity to ESA. The problem is the tests are not fit for purpose, and the support disabled people are meant to get to help find work is not there. Many genuinely sick and disabled people are failing the ESA tests, those people are being abandoned by all the political parties. The tests are carried out by ATOS a private healthcare firm who are paid on results, the more people fail the test, the more ATOS gets paid.

Disabled people feel scared, many are not in a position to appeal after they lose benefit, they don't have the confidence or the strength. Its not that disabled people don't want to work. Many do but we need more support, more help, we need workplaces that are accessible and have proper facilities. This isn't the case just now so throwing disabled people into the jobs market is impracticable at best and cruel at worst.

ESA doesn't even take into account the way health conditions affect people. So there are people who are too ill to hold down work, too ill to work more than a couple of hours, even terminally ill people losing benefits and being told to find work, some have died before they could appeal.

At the moment all the political parties are supporting ESA. Douglas Alexander has just announced that Labour will be supporting the government in its roll out of ESA, they paln to move every disabled person in the country from incapacity to ESA. The disabled community are appealing for your help. We want the political parties to listen to us and stiop the roll out untill such time as there have been a complete averhaul of the system. All we ask for is justice and fairness.

View petition

The Nottinghamshire Disability Support Team recently took a coach load of disabled young people (two of whom were dependant on wheelchairs) to the theatre on a trip so that they could have the chance to go out and have fun just like other people their age.

Due to an unforeseeable amount of traffic they arrived at the theatre after the show had begun and they were told that the people who could walk could go in but the wheelchair users would not be allowed in until the interval, as was 'theatre policy', meaning that all of the money that they spent was wasted.

View petition

Individuals with Developmental Disabilities are having Adult Day Program hours and services cut and sometimes eliminated when they are funded through the Medical Assistance program in Maryland. Individuals, caregiver's and care providers and teams that support them have requested that their Adult Day Program funding be switched to DDA funding.

Individuals who have their services cut are experiencing differences in services from those funded through the developmental disabilities administration. Elimination of tracking, reviewing and reporting of social/learning goals, community activities and a drastic cut in the amount of hours that they will be served are some of the services being affected.

This is placing an insurmountable burden on caregiver’s and family members and the individuals with developmental disabilities that are in need of these services.

View petition

As parents of Children with Disabilities we are already struggling with the limited provision and support provided through Government Agencies/Local Authority.

Therefore we are organising a campaign to not only stop the cuts, but to ask for additional provisions from the Government.

View petition

Orinde Disability Self Help Group was founded and registered in the year 2010 with the Ministry of gender and Social Services within Rachuonyo South District. This group is formed and managed by Persons Living with HIV / AIDs hailing from Kojwach Location.

This group was formed with the initial objectives of poverty, stigma and high dependency rate eradication among the group members and their dependants.

With the meeting at Orinde, this group comprises of 30 members who are out to work.

View petition

In May 2007 the Labour administration launched 'Aiming High for Disabled Children: Better support for families' to improve service provision across the board for disabled children and their families, and enhance equality and opportunity for them. Members of Parents in Touch have been part of the steering group in Hounslow and have advocated that children with complex and severe disability need access to play within the borough without a referral to social care services.

As a steering group we have allocated £340,800 of the capital spend in 2010/11 be invested in the enclosed space in Redlees Park currently used for the One O'clock Club, increasing the indoor space and making the facilities accessible to older disabled children.

We are asking parents, carers, friends and families to sign our petition in support of this much-needed provision by improving facilities at Redlees Park, and to ask their family, friends and colleagues to also sign in support of our cause.

View petition

I was talking with a friend today, he’s got a severe case of visual and hearing loss, meaning he needs support to travel.

There’s a scheme called Direct Payments, that enables him to pay for someone to be his guide (normally around £7.50 an hour) to gets around – e.g., to keep well, to shop, to meet people, to find work, etc.

That does not cover travel expenses for the guide. In other words, he has to pay all the travel expenses for the guide, out of his own pocket. To get to the eye hospital in London, for example, (I’m sure you appreciate that it’s not easy to take a dog guide around London) he would have to pay his own travel expenses PLUS his guide's travel expenses - £36 each for Winchester to London (after railcard discount – a third off), £3.60 each for the Underground (Oyster), and refreshments – e.g., tea/coffee, water, etc. – about £3 each for the whole trip.

£85.20 is the total. All out of his own pocket. On a very low income too. If he was to be a sighted passenger, it’d have been only £42.60.

A large percentage of that is for the train fares. On this Winchester to London route, unlike elsewhere in the UK, there is no cheaper advance ticket.

If guide dogs for the blind can travel for free, shouldn’t guides in the form of human beings too?

If number of people with severe visual impairment and a guide travelling on the train is 1 out of 1,000 (honestly, I’ve never seen any myself), then is it not reasonable to expect the impact to train company’s revenues to be negligible.

View petition

- There is no access for people in wheelchairs on the Melbourne City Circle Tram;

- The MCCT is the only free tram in the city;

- Many people who are in wheelchairs use public transport on a daily basis. This is often because they are unable to drive and/or don’t have access to a van or taxi. Some of them also don’t have a lot of money to spend on getting around;

- Most trams, buses and trains are set up to allow access to everyone, including people in wheelchairs. This is a common concept these days and it is expected that the entire community will be able to take part in using our public transport system.

View petition

The government stated to people who have a disability that the Disability Living Allowance will be there until you die.

But now they are cutting it down due to the National Debt in the U.K.

View petition

This petition is dedicated to the memory of every adult or child who lost their life to Congenital Heart Defects (CHD).

1 out of 85 babies in the United States of America are born with CHD. **Correction by Dr. Diana Bernshausen of Euless, TX**

Every 15 minutes one of those children pass away from CHD.

1/2 of all CHD babies do not make it to their 1st birthday!!

Congenital Heart Defects are present at birth, and can involve malformations of the heart, valves, arteries, and any other part of the heart/lung area. Congential Heart Defects are not usually discovered until the child shows physical signs or it's too late.

Most pregnant woman are not even told about CHD by their doctors.

This petition was started so that someone in the United States Media would take note and help some of these families and survivors start telling their stories.

Whether it be in television interviews, pubishing or book deals, movies about CHD, or newspaper articles the people of the United States of America have a right to know about the most deadly defect in their country!!

View petition

Are you Ready, Willing & Able to give every child the right to an education?

There are around 50 million disabled children in Africa and the reality is that around 90% of these children are being denied this right – the right to an education

And the UN has committed to give every child a right to a primary education by 2015 and both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have given their support to this goal in principle

What isn’t clear, is what action the UK government is going to take to ensure that disabled children are included in this goal by the UN target date of 2015

We are calling on the new UK government to confirm its commitment to ensuring that every disabled child in the world can get a primary education by 2015

We are also calling on the government to publish a step-by-step guide to the actions it is committing to take to tackle this issue over the next five years

Our concern is that the world isn’t really Ready, Willing & Able to give every disabled child a right to an education by 2015?

We say the world isn’t yet READY to give every disabled child a right to an education, because we don’t even know how many disabled children there are in the world or the real percentage of those, not in school who are disabled

We say the world isn’t yet WILLING to give to give every disabled child a right to an education as there is a clear lack of both policy commitments and practice on the need to include disabled children in all education initiatives

We say the world isn’t yet ABLE to give to give every disabled child a right to an education because we don’t even know how much it will cost to overcome the barriers to accessibility that disabled children face – and there is a lack of international commitment to address the attitudinal and environmental barriers that prevent us from giving disabled child a right to an education

And if you are Ready, Willing & Able to take action today and give every disabled child a right to an education there are four things you can do today to help us help millions of disabled children in Africa:

1. Sign the petition below

2. Join our Ready, Willing & Able campaign by emailing ready@ablechildafrica.org.uk

3. Tell your friends about the campaign and ask them to join today

4. Support our work by making a donation to AbleChildAfrica today by visiting www.ablechildafrica.org.uk and clicking on the donate button

Thank you for being Ready, Willing & Able to help some of Africa’s 50 million disabled children to get the best possible start in life

View petition