Community contributors

Ade is a Nigerian-born British TV presenter and former wheelchair basketball player. He contracted polio as a child, causing damage to his legs which required him to use a wheelchair. He moved to the UK with his family aged three and had aspirations of becoming an international sportsman when he was young. As a member of Team GB, he won a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and a gold medal at the 2005 Paralympic World Cup. Since retiring, he has featured in many TV programmes as an actor, guest and presenter including Eastenders and presenting coverage of Paralympic Games, Children in Need and documentaries. 

He is a patron of Go Kids Go, which helps children in wheelchairs, and supports the NSPCC, WheelPower, Comic Relief and is an Athlete Ambassador for Right to Play, the world's leading sport for development charity.  

Rose is a British actress who has been deaf since birth and is a British Sign Language user. She is best known for her roles in Eastenders and in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, where she was nominated for an Olivier Award, and being Strictly Come Dancing’s first deaf contestant. She went onto win the show and won a Bafta for ‘TV Moment of the Year’ for adding a period of silence to her ‘Couple’s Choice’ dance as a tribute to the deaf community. In 2024, Rose became the first deaf person to host sport coverage on TV when she became a Channel 4 presenter for the Summer Paralympics in Paris.  

Jennie is a British disabled content creator and wheelchair user. She shares her everyday experiences on her Instagram 'Wheelie Good Life' as an opportunity to educate others about living with a disability. Jennie also works at ‘Sociability’, an app that helps disabled people find accessible places. 

Jane is a British disability rights campaigner and life peer in the House of Lords. She was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy as a baby and wasn’t expected to reach her second birthday. Jane attended a segregated school for disabled children where academic achievement was not a top priority so she left school at 16 with no qualifications and hardly able to read or write but this did not stop her from pursuing academia and she enrolled at a special disabled college where she could excel and she continued her education to Masters level.  

Her working life has been dedicated to disability rights and she has worked for local councils, becoming the Principal Disability Advisor for the London Borough of Hounslow in 1987, then becoming co-chair of the British Council of Disabled People in the early 90s and Commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission.  

She was made a Dame in 2006 and a life peer in 2007. She continues to fight for disability rights and has campaigned for better welfare benefits, the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 and assisted dying. 

Lucy is a British model and disability activist who became paralysed after contracting a rare brain disease called encephalitis in 2016. She was initially diagnosed with a breakdown and sectioned when she began experiencing head pain as a student. Lucy now uses her social media platform to break down stereotypes, and speak up for disability rights. She has modelled for Simply Be, Pretty Little Thing, Fabletics, Amazon and Bravissimo. 

Her disability activism has won her numerous awards including Active Change Award, Role Model Award and 30 Under 30 Rising Stars Award. She’s also amplified social media campaigns #DisabledAndSexy and #BabesWithMobilityAids. 

Nikki is a British broadcaster, presenter and documentary maker, who was born with muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair for most of her adult life. She has presented on a number of TV shows including The One Show, How to Look Good Naked and Watchdog, and was appointed the Disability News Correspondent for the BBC in 2014. She has won numerous awards including a Sony Award, and has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the UK.

Mary was a British civil servant and disability rights campaigner, who was instrumental in helping pass the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which makes provision with respect to the welfare of chronically sick and disabled people eg local authorities making buildings accessible, meals in the hoe, recreational services, travel, adaptations to the home and more. 

As a child, Mary contracted polio, which left her severely disabled. She gained increased freedom with a hand propelled tricycle and was able to attend college, and eventually established her own successful shorthand and typing school. She eventually became a civil servant after university.  

Her activism became a focus when she retired, travelling the country to investigate the employment opportunities for disabled people and subsequently writing a book about her findings. She became the director of the Disability Income Group in 1969, leading campaigns around employment, disability incomes, and mobility issues, and played an active role in helping the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act pass in 1970. Mary died in 1983 aged 75. 

Tanni is a TV presenter, former wheelchair racing champion and life peer in the House of Lords, born with spina bifida. During her racing career, she won 11 Paralympic gold medals. Upon retiring, Tanni became a sports presenter for BBC Wales and BBC One and became the first female wheelchair user in the world to present on television on BBC2's ground-breaking series for disabled people From the Edge. 

She’s sat on the National Disability Council and Sports Council for Wales and on the board for the London Marathon, Transport for London and currently sits on the London Legacy Development Corporation and chairs ukactive. As well as this, Tanni is patron to the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Wembley Stadium Legacy Trust and Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice, and president of Sportsleaders UK and a UNICEF ambassador, among other things.  

In 2005, she was made a Dame for services to disabled sport and received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement in 2019.  

Amanda Gorman is a Black American poet and activist. She founded a non-profit youth writing and leadership program called One Pen, One Page; she’s a Youth Poet Laureate and became the youngest poet to read at a presidential inauguration when she read her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.  

Amanda has an auditory processing disorder which makes speech articulation and the pronunciation of certain words and sounds difficult. 

Alison is a British Labour Party politician and television writer, who became a disability rights campaigner following her son being born with a rare chromosomal disorder and co-founding ‘York Accessibility Action. It was through her activism that she entered formal politics, standing as a candidate and becoming in the MP for Scarborough and Whitby in 2024. 

Francesca is a British comedian, writer and actress, who has cerebral palsy. She made her debut on the TV show Grange Hill in the 90s aged 14 but turned her focus to stand-up comedy and writing in adulthood. In 2022, she wrote a play called All of Us, which focused on a lead character with cerebral palsy and disability.  

She is an advocate for disability rights and welfare, is patron to a number of charities and has also spoken up about the climate crisis.  

Bianca is a British artist, activist and public speaker, who is registered blind. Her work explores themes of memory, perception and fragility, and uses soft colours and shadows. She became the first registered blind student to graduate from Kingston University with a First-class degree in the visual arts in 2016. In 2024, she was selected by Tracey Emin for a residency at TKE Studios in Margate and was tipped as ‘one to watch’. 

Eliza is a British disabled non-binary content creator. Eliza creates content around disability and LGBTQIA+ positivity and navigating life in a wheelchair. They are on a mission to try and make difficult, big topics easy to digest in bitesized, more accessible chunks.  

Yinka is a Black British artist exploring cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism. At the age of 18, he contracted transverse myelitis (an inflammation of the spinal cord) which resulted in paralysis on one side of his body. He uses assistants to make work under his instruction. 

Yinka’s work has been exhibited in the Venice Biennial, Smithsonian, Saatchi Gallery, National Museum of African Art, The Foundling Museum, Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, among others. He is a patron of the annual Shape Arts ‘Open’ exhibition where disabled and non-disabled artists are invited to submit work on the theme.  

Stephanie is a Black American disability fashion stylist, public speaker, voice actor and professor. 

Stephanie is a congenital amputee, born without her right thumb and three toes, and was not expected to be able to walk when she was a child. She has worked in disability fashion styling for 30 years and her work has been featured in Vogue, The Guardian and The New Yorker. When she started out in radio, she spent a year wearing pyjamas to highlight the limited clothing options for people with disabilities. In 2020, she founded Cur8able, a business dedicated to fashion for people with disabilities. 

Alice is an American disability rights activist. 

Alice was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular disorder, which caused her to stop walking at the age of eight.  

Wong is the founder and Project Coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project (DVP), a project collecting oral histories of people with disabilities in the US to amplify disability culture.