Source: ABC news
Paralympians are leading the charge in a new worldwide campaign to end the discrimination faced by the 1.2 billion people with disability.
Hailed as a major human rights movement, WeThe15 represents the 15 per cent of people around the world living with disability.
Ahead of the Tokyo Games, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has launched the campaign in partnership with major organisations from across the fields of sport, human rights, arts and policy.
Using the profile of the Paralympics, WeThe15 aims to change attitudes towards disability and increase awareness of accessibility.
‘There was such stigma’
Tokyo will be swimmer Ellie Cole’s fourth Paralympics.
She’s just one of the many athletes supporting WeThe15.
“When I was younger, there was such stigma around disability; the word disability was almost hushed in every single language,” Cole said.
“I think most people aren’t aware that their communities aren’t even accessible to the 15 per cent of the community that have a disability.”
The IPC has partnered with 20 international organisations to bring the campaign to life, among them UNESCO, Invictus Games and The Valuable 500 — an organisation pushing the business community to put disability on their agendas.
Running for the next decade, the campaign will focus on a different area of inequality each year, like education, employment and healthcare.
IPC president Andrew Parsons said sport and events were “hugely powerful vehicles to engage global audiences.”
“WeThe15 aspires to be the biggest ever human rights movement for persons with disabilities and aims to put disability right at the heart of the inclusion agenda, alongside ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation,” Mr Parsons said.
“We will make a tangible and well overdue difference for the planet’s largest marginalised group.”
For Ms Cole, her first Paralympicsback in 2008 gave her a sense of “belonging”.
“It’s really difficult to explain to somebody who isn’t a Paralympian on just how special it is,” Ms Cole said.
“To be able to be in a Paralympic village around people who look just like you, people who have faced so much adversity just like you and have done wonderful things.
“What I’ve loved about being a Paralympian is that it creates such a great discussion and changes the stigma, the perception and the culture of disability.
“Everybody wants to feel included, everybody wants to have the same opportunity as the person next to them and it shouldn’t be based on how you were born or if you were in an accident.”
‘Is disability in it and if not, why not?’
Well-known Paralympic wheelchair racer Kurt Fearnley, who will be commentating at the Tokyo Games, has added his voice to the campaign.
“In Australia we have a very strong disability rights movement, we have grounds that we still need to make, but when travelling internationally often you see disability completely on the fringes of life,” Mr Fearnley said.
“This is an advocacy campaign that uses the huge platform of the Paralympics and brings it into as many loungerooms as it can, and it can challenge misconceptions around what it is to be a person with a disability.”
Mr Fearnley said people with disability too often found themselves the only disabled person in the room talking about inclusion.
He said he wanted to see real action.
“We need everybody to look around in the room they’re in right now and say is disability in it and if not, why not?” he said.
“Let’s use this moment where we get to celebrate disability on the third biggest sporting event in the world and let’s get outcomes and let’s try and make this campaign the most successful campaign.”Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
A powerful 90-second video showcasing WeThe15 will be shown at the opening ceremony in Tokyo on August 24.
It features people with disability poking fun at some of the more frustrating things said to them, like being told they are inspirational, or that they need to pray for a cure.
Paralympians will also be wearing temporary tattoos featuring the campaign symbol: a clock face showing the 15 per cent of the world’s population living with disability.
Mr Fearnley said away from the sporting arena, Paralympians experienced the same barriers as other people with disability.
“Don’t ignore the disability, don’t look through the disability and don’t say that these are superhumans, because they are wonderfully human and wonderfully normal,” he said.
“When they [Paralympians] step off that stage at the end of the day, they are proud people with disabilities dealing with the same things that every person with a disability has to do in day to day life.
“So let’s make it better.”
