Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

In this ezine, we have some artwork from Culture Access. They worked together as a group and individually. These have been in an exhibition and will be housed, hopefully, more permanently in an art gallery when it opens in the summer.

Culture Access

Culture Access CIC, a collective of Deaf and Disabled people, had an exhibition of their joint artwork at Woolwich Centre Library. It is a pan-disability group and Deaf, Blind and Visually impaired, neurodiverse people all worked together. Many of the group had not produced any artwork before and here are some of their graphic and tactile examples. They have an offer of a longer exhibition in a couple of months in south-east London, to be announced later.

Here are the artists’ comments on their artwork:

Anahita Harding: “this collage weaves together green fabric knots with a variety of colours and textures— inviting hands and eyes to explore.”

Eleanor Thoe: “Durian is a favourite fruit from East and South East Asia. It is a strong and pungent fruit and has a spiky exterior. But the delicious creaminess is unbeatable. It brings back memories and reminders of my heritage as an immigrant here.”

Kamila Miri: “Music has charms to soothe the savage beast and always brings people in peace and harmony.”

Sajida Shah: “I don’t need vision to see my artwork, I can feel it and it’s just as good.”

Sue Elsegood and Kate Brown: “When diverse threads weave together they become stronger & create something uniquely beautiful”

Commission on the Status of Women Parliamentary Briefing

Eleanor and Kym went to the briefing at Portcullis House for Sisters of Frida. 

2025 is the 30th anniversary of the last UN World Conference on Women held in Beijing and the ‘Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’ (BPfA) which stated commitments of participating countries. The BPfA remains a foundational document for advancing towards equality of women and men. 30 years on, the BPfA has not been fully implemented anywhere in the world.

Every year at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the annual UN event to monitor progress on the BPfA, participants fight to hold the line against a roll-back on the rights for women and girls globally.

This March, a sizeable UK NGO delegation participated in the 69th Session of the CSW and were active in all areas of the Commission. The UK Government endorsed and helped negotiate the CSW69 Political Declaration, which improved on the Political Declaration made 5 years ago. Yet it is not the robust document that women and girls need.

In the photo are Kym Oliver, Eleanor Lisney and Zarin Hainsworth (NAWO)

Green Paper ‘Pathways to Work’

Welfare Not Warfare

We are much concerned, as are other DDPOs and Disabled people, with the government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper. Some of us took part in the marches on 26th March.

Mass Lobby on 21st May

There is much happening to fight against the cuts.

The next big event is on 21st May, when there is a mass lobby in parliament. It’s a powerful opportunity to speak with one voice.

If you can make it, please come and meet with your MP, and tell them to vote against these harmful cuts.

There will be information provided on the day to support you, as well as volunteers from many Disabled-led organisations helping attendees.

You can also get funding to travel to Westminster and stay in a hotel if needed (see image below).

Read more about the mass lobby and how to get involved on the Well Adapt website!

Women’s Budget Group

Sisters of Frida is working with the Women’s Budget Group to research the impact of cuts on Disabled women.

Many thanks to the generosity of those who responded to the questionnaire – we will keep you posted on the outcome of this research.

The questionnaire was described like this:

“The Women’s Budget Group (a feminist economics think tank) and Sisters of Frida (a Disabled women and non-binary people’s collective) are conducting analysis of how the changes to disability benefits and work support announced by the Government in March 2025 will affect Disabled women specifically. We will use the findings from this research to put pressure on MPs, politicians and policymakers, to reconsider these reforms and protect Disabled women, and Disabled people in general, from poverty and socio-economic hardship. 

We are using national statistics to describe the impact these reforms will have on Disabled women. We are also doing interviews with women with lived experience of disability to better understand how these reforms will affect their lives, and the effects the announcement of cuts is already having on women’s health and wellbeing. 

If you agree to take part, we will ask you to share your experiences of disability and state support by answering the questions below. Your participation is voluntary, and you do not need to answer any questions you don’t want to, and you can stop completing the survey at any point if you wish to.  

Your responses will be used to illustrate how disability reforms are expected to impact Disabled women. We may use excerpts of your answers in our briefing. It will be anonymised so that the information cannot be linked to you.”