Highland disability group wants to be heard
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A Highland-wide group has been set up to speak up on behalf of people with disability concerns.
The group, High Ability (Voices of Inclusion), was named at an adoption meeting held in Culloden Balloch Baptist Church.
It is hoped it will be a leading authority on disability rights throughout the Highlands and Islands when it is officially launched early in 2020.
High Ability is the culmination of three years’ work to form a group to address a range of disability issues in the region.
As a first of a kind for the Highlands, more than 50 per cent of the people who will sit on the group have some form of disability.
The group has been developed after Inclusion Scotland, a disability rights group, was funded by the Scottish Government to look at strengthening the voice of disabled people in the Highlands.
Andrew Jarvie, communication and engagement officer for Inclusion Scotland in Inverness, said: “There has not been any kind of region-wide group that represents the voice of people with disabilities for about 20 years. And there has not been a group that has ever had at least 50 per cent of disabled people on it. So this is a good step forward for people.
“Inclusion Scotland has been working with people for the last three years to get to this point. We had a number of suggestions about the name, but after a number of workshops and taking the matter to a vote of all the partners, we decided to name the new group High Ability. We have developed a constitution for the group, a few matters that arose at our last meeting will be incorporated into the constitution. We are in the process of making those changes.
“Part of the groups responsibility will be to represent the views of disabled people at a strategic level with statutory organisations. It is hoped that organisations will approach the group for advice, and its members will be a voice for the community in public life.”
Until now the group has been working under the title of Disability Highland Community of Practice.
Mr Jarvie continued: “The group will be a voice for rights activism, as a consultee on national policy issues. We want to make sure the voice from Highland people living and working with disabilities is high on the agenda.”
