Month: November 2012

What do charities actually do?



Charities were a creation of the 19th Century as a solution of the new middle class rich to the new era of poverty to help the deserving poor and to ensure the wealthy made their way to heaven. In a era where anything goes, many charities get up institutions of “help” the disabled and started over a century of institutional care when the remains still exist today.

By the 1930s depression, the rich were no longer as rich as they were and so charities who were already established started to look to the wider public for donations and so the notion of charity as we see today was born. And for another 50 years or so, charities provides services and support in a way that was indeed charitable.

I think in the 1980s and 90s, a few things happened. Firstly many disabled people gained a political voice and were quick to tell charities they are fed up on how the charities portrayed them in a manner which was aggressive to say the least. Also charities were being professionalised and were taking up more services funded by the state, which made them less independent. And these factored as lead to the modern so-called charity.

Now charities claim to be the friends and allies of the people they claim to support when in fact they are using the now politically correct activity of campaigning, the new public face of charities, to steal the voice of those it needs to control to survive. No longer are charities helping the deserving poor but the deserving poor are forced to help keep charity workers in a job.

Charities are now just businesses where fat cat directors are slowly being handed to remaining silver of this country as the government uses the notion of Big Society, to privatise any and every service going. Because ‘its charity’ we are expected to accepted second class standard and even as users required to donate money to pay for the salaries of the fat cat directories as the old boys network moves from banking to charities.

Charities are not bad but they are not being honest about what they really are and how they have very little to do the Christian notion of charity as the new growth industry and they slowly build new and quite threatening empires.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at http://www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

Stop treating learning disability as a cultural minority


I believe within adult social care people with learning difficulties are often regarded and treated as a cultural minority in a way that does not happen without choice with any other group of disabled people. They are assumed to want to live, work and play together as a political minority.

This is not just how it was but how organisations want it to remain as they encourage people with learning difficulties to campaign for the rights as a cultural and political minority. This benefits the many organisations which profit from providing services as people as learning difficulties as a group who need their lives controlled. By controlling their campaigning activities, on the assuming they are asking for what will never be achieved as opposed to in reality what they already have available to them, organisations keep control.

We could argue that learning difficulty is a label rather than anything else which is place on a person early on enough in their lives, they are told and taught to became that label regardless of their actual ability. When the label does not appear due to someone’s background, we can see them reach important positions like Borris Johnson and George W Bush who could both be seriously argued as having some form of learning difficulties.

If we want real inclusion we need to break the cycle of creating people with learning difficulties simply to feed the special schools and adult service providers who provide from this social creation.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

The refusal to take responsibility


I believe it is so important to understand that rights are meaningless without responsibilities and what gives us our true freedom is to take responsibilities for our own actions as individuals.

It could be argued that collectives are a mechanism for some to demand rights without a willingness to take responsibility for one’s actions as individuals hide themselves in the bigger picture. But I have learnt, probably the hard way, that the only person really looking after me is me and therefore if I want something I must get it myself.

Some chronically sick people talk about illness like it is a state of being when they no longer have to take responsibility because they are too ill but for so many people, they have to continue their carer and other responsibilities whether they are ill or not. As someone who employs personal assistants, I need to continue to manage them and worry about them even if I am ill or in hospital, such as ensuring they are paid.

I have little time for those who claim to be ill but have time to claim they can not take responsibility yet complain all day how bad life is for them. If people took more responsibility for their actions, we would all be better off.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

Has Inclusion been put on hold?



I believe inclusion in the widest sense is my goal as an disability activist. For me, it is about removing the barriers of disability so people are impairments can as equal life opportunities and experiences as anyone else. It is not a right but a responsibility of everyone.

The fact is I fear the user led charities, the wider disability charities and the old and new disability movements have either forgotten this or chosen not ignore inclusion because it does not suit their survival. True inclusion would mean a total mainstreaming of services other than those which are impairment specific and therefore would mean there is be no reason for them to exist in their current form.

This is supported by a refusal by many disabled people to take responsibility to achieve the inclusion already within their grasp, preferring not to move from the exclusion they have been so comfortable with. I therefore fear the wider inclusion agenda is on hold as new reasons not to feel included have been created, like hate crime.

I feel full inclusion is still achievable and will be achieved when real disabled people are ready to reclaim their issues from those who seek to abuse them.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

We are not all socialists!


In the way I feel the voice of black people is often hijacked by Christian Churches as a ‘community’ issues, it is clear that a socialist movement has hijacked the voice of disabled people as a ‘rights’ issue and I believe they have tried to turn it into a working class struggle.

The fact is disability effects people with impairments from all backgrounds, all classes, all ages and in fact all everything. To turn it into anything else to suit political ideology is insulting. The notion of all disabled people being in poverty is wrong and indeed as someone who lives in so-called poverty, I am not sure we can call it poverty.

As a disability activist, I am fed up that my platform is being stolen by people who simply hate the government and using the welfare reforms as an excuse to demand a socialist state despite the fact it is a political concept that failed throughout Eastern Europe and left disabled people trapped in underfunded institutions as the unwanted of society. If they want Animal Farm, I am not letting them send me to the glue factory!

The voice of real disabled people should be the voice of real disabled people and nothing less, and the socialists should go away and find another issue to corrupt!


If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

What could meaningful contribution look like?


I talk all the time about meaningful contribution to society but what do I mean and what could it look like? It is very clear I do not just mean employment but a much wider concept where it is about the effort someone puts in rather than the attainment.

So it could also include education, employment, training, raising a family and just writing a blog or making some else smile. It is about understanding a person’s own situation and ensure they have a willingness to contribute to the best of their ability as opposed to the negative attitude of “can’t” we see with many sick and disabled people as well as a whole range of other people.

I believe making a meaningful contribution can instil pride and good mental wellbeing giving benefit to everyone. I would therefore challenge anyone to tell me I am wrong to believe anyone can make a meaningful contribution.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

What does ‘being too ill’ look like?


Time after time I am hearing people on sickness benefits say it is okay for disabled people because they just has functional problems and we are too ill to work. But what does that actually mean?

I define work in the widest sense and as a basic, if you are able to use the internet then you are most likely to be able to work in some way. We are not talking 9 to 5 down a mine but to be able to contribute to the fabric of society.

But what does too ill mean? If you are in hospital or suffering from acute illness then I can understand you can be indeed too ill to work. But with chronic illness, to which I indeed have as well as cerebral palsy, we are talking about a level of manageability where the possibility of work is likely.

Many of the sick activists who claim they are too ill to work are appearing to actually demonstrate they can work by they own campaigning activists and I sure many of them will find jobs in user led charities as they come to terms with their own situations.

So I am left wondering what ‘too ill’ looks like and whether in reality it is about attitude rather than anything else.


If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

My vision for Disability

You must know by now I am optimised and so of course I have a bright vision for the future of disabled people. Unlike many other ‘activists’ who wallow in doom and gloom, I believe disabled people are on the way to full inclusion if only they saw the opportunities around them.

The journey ahead is not easy but it is rewarding as disabled people are more accepted as equal members of society. These means the notion of disability could disappear as we see and celebrate people as individuals with impairments. We have more accessible environments, we have the technology and now we need to finish working on behaviours and attitudes.

I see the sick movement as a blimp since it is simply an one-issue reaction to change which will quickly be forgotten but it is accepted those who can work should work. It however does not make their attack on the inclusion of real disabled people excusable and must be challenged.

But long term, it will be shows like “I’m Spazticus” which will help bring the vision for disabled people into reality and I will be there to see it for myself.

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

Should I get more involved with user led charities?


It is clear I want to become a big player in the development of disability policy in the UK in the near future. I am already well known and I have many contacts but a question to ask myself is whether or not I need to get involved with user led charities to make that people.

For those who have not already guessed I do not have a high opinion on user led charities. I feel they have become a part of the problem and not the solution as they change their remit to suit their funders not to meet the real needs of disabled people. I feel they have grown dependent on the dependency of disabled people.

So it is wise for me to ignore them and aim to have a direct relationship with government and try to get involved with them and work with them to develop into creditable organisations of the future. I think their reaction to my soon to be released Wellbeing and Inclusion Manifesto is going to tell me the answers I need to know.



 If you like what I say, have a look at my website at http://www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74

A hostile sick and disabled movement?



One of my greatest frustrations at the moment is how hostile the so-called sick and disabled movement is and the impact that has on how I am portrayed by society as a real disabled person. The whole issue of disability has been boiled down to a stand off on the welfare reforms and the wild accusations this movement is making about its impact.

They not only portray disabled people as victims who are unfit and unworthy of exclusion but they talk about the government and ATOS with such hostility, there is zero room and interest in any proper debate in the matter and they use emotional blackmail and a misguided idea of divine rights to beat the heads on anyone who challenges their hostile stance.

It has reached a point when I fear user led charities are now scared to support real disabled people by working with the government and companies like ATOS because of a possibility they would be viciously attacked by a movement obsessed in its desire to control the voice of disabled people.

If I am the only person willing to stand up to these bullies as they rip up any hope real disabled people had of full inclusion, then so be it and here I am. I can not be rational to them until they are rational to me!

If you like what I say, have a look at my website at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74