Campaigning Awards
Winners of Leonard Cheshire Disability Campaigning Service of the Year announced
The winners of the 2010 Campaigning Service of the Year award have been announced. The award recognises the vital work done by our campaigners to get action taken on local issues that affect disabled people. In first place were Grange Disability Action, one of our Campaigns Action Groups (CAGs), who won for their success in getting the public, politicians and businesses to work together to transform access to buildings and attractions in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria.
Read on to find out more about the awards including podcast interviews with the award winners.
In a close contest, second place went to Access All Areas, a group from Bromley, Kent, who persuaded the Department of Transport to bring forward access work at their local railway station by an incredible five years.
Grange Disability Action impressed the judges with their fresh and collaborative approach to improving access in Grange-over-Sands, a popular tourist destination on the edge of the Lake District. After identifying problems with roads, pavements and buildings the group recruited members from different backgrounds and built relationships with people who make decisions locally. They also managed to capture the attention of newspapers and TV in imaginative ways, which included persuading the local MP to explore the town in a wheelchair.
The result has been an agreed programme of improvements and increased awareness of the need for better access for disabled residents and visitors. Barbara McCaffrey, who chairs the group, said: We set out from the beginning to work with, not against, councils and businesses. We've only been going for about two years but this approach is paying off. This award is a great booster and will help us keep going.
In Bromley the Access All Areas group also made a breakthrough by successfully engaging with the wider community. They gathered over 1000 signatures to a petition asking for much needed access improvements at Bromley South railway station. As a result, the Government agreed to to make the station accessible in time for the 2012 Olympics, after originally saying nothing would be done until 2017.
Congratulations to both groups! Entries to the Campaigning Service of the Year award were judged by a panel of disabled people, who weighed up each campaign in terms of its impact, how it involved the local community and the range of activities undertaken. The judging process was a tense affair, according to Joanne Sansome, from Belfast, who was on the panel. She said: "The best way to describe the final decision would be 'very close', especially for the top two places, but I was really impressed and inspired by the standard of all the entries."
To hear more about Grange Disability Action from member from members of the group, listen to these podcasts taken the day of the award ceremony.