Disability is not about physical, sensory, or learning impairments, or mental health issues. Disability is about the exclusion of certain people from social, economic, cultural and political activities because those responsible for designing facilities and arranging activities have not acknowledged our personal requirements resulting from impairments.

An impairment is any injury, illness or condition that causes a loss or change of a physical or psychological function. The majority of the population will experience some degree of impairment in their lives as a temporary or permanent condition.

Disability is the loss or limitation of opportunity to take part in society because of social, attitudinal or physical barriers.

Disability 'Models' - In a nutshell, the medical model of disability still dominates institutional thinking. This defines disability as a problem with the person. According to the medical model of disability, we can not participate in a non-disabled world because our legs, eyes, ears etc don't work. The solution, in this view of the world, is to invest in cures to help us walk, talk, hear, see...

For us the main problem lies with society. According to the social model of disability, we can not participate in a non-disabled world or even our local communities, because society, the built environment, and 'The System' often won't allow us to.

Removing The Barriers - Very few people deliberately discriminate against disabled people. But it is easy to put up unnecessary barriers that shut us out.

Some barriers are obvious - Buildings designed on different levels with stairs as the only access inevitably prevents access by a wheelchair user, or someone who can walk, but can not climb stairs.

Some barriers are less obvious - Assumptions about formal qualifications in recruitment campaigns ignore the fact that the “special” school system might not be geared towards academic achievement.

Publishing information using small print means that over 15% of the population can not read it. Most of all, some attitudes can shut out disabled people by not accepting us as equal citizens.

Changing The World
There are lots of ways that we can change the world we live in: 
- We can work with government to change legislation and make the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) more powerful.
- We can join together with other disabled people, for instance in Disability Forums.
- We can work in our local communities to change attitudes and make our environment more accessible.