Holly Tuke

Life of a Blind Girl

Holly is a writer, blogger and campaigner. She started her blog, Life of a Blind Girl, in 2015 to educate people about sight loss, tackle stereotypes, and share some life hacks. Holly covers topics including university, employment, fashion and concerts – through the lens of visual impairment – for audiences of both disabled and non-disabled people.

Popular posts include ‘10 things I want non-disabled people to know’ and ‘A positive message for people recently diagnosed with sight loss’. Life of a Blind Girl was shortlisted for Health Unlocked’s Health Blogger of the Year Awards 2017 and the 2019 UK Blog Awards.

As well as her blog, Holly’s YouTube channel, under the same name, is well respected in the disability community and reaches a wide audience of disabled and non-disabled people. Her compassion has made her a lifeline for people coming to terms with sight loss and other disabilities.

Recently featured on RNIB Connect radio, BBC Radio York and BBC Radio Leeds, Holly has also contributed to Able Magazine, the Yorkshire Post, the Huffington Post and the Guardian. She has also written for Seeable, Ability Superstore and was involved in RNIB’s #HowISee campaign and Scope’s #EndTheAwkward campaign. Holly was recognised as a Young Changemaker by the Inspiring Women Changemakers organisation and this year has been nominated as a Positive Role Model at the National Diversity Awards.

 Holly graduated York St John University with a BA Honours degree in Children, Young People and Families and now works at the University as an Assistive Technology Advisor, helping students find the right support for their needs and training them how to use a wide range of assistive technology. She is an Ambassador for the Wilberforce Trust.

lifeofablindgirl.com

Heather Lacey

nosuperhero.co.uk

Heather is an activist, writer, researcher and public speaker, whose experience of cerebral palsy, Scheuermann’s kyphosis and mental illness lead her to find solace in social media and eventually start her blog, nosuperhero.co.uk. Her writing – though candid and oftentimes hard-hitting – illuminates yet celebrates the disabled experience and her experiences of chronic pain, fatigue and mobility issues. She explains: “Navigating the world as a young disabled woman has its challenges: ultimately, I want to reassure others that they are not alone, and that their experiences are valid and important.”

Heather also writes for Able Magazine and has been published in the Journal of Gender Studies and The British Society for Literature and Science. She is a frequent guest on panels and at conferences, and earlier this year chaired a panel including Ade Adepitan and Cerrie Burnell at The London Book Fair. During her time at law firm Eversheds Sutherland, Heather has promoted and contributed to the firm’s D&I strategy, acting as a Network Lead on Wellbeing and Ability, the disabled colleagues and carers network, as well as sitting on pro-manchester’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee and attending Business Disability Forum’s Northern Network. Earlier this year, Heather was a judge for the Recruitment Industry Disability Awards on behalf of Eversheds Sutherland, adjudicating entries based on Disability Confident criteria and demonstrable recruitment and retainment of disabled talent.

She has worked with organisations including Scope, BBC Ouch and Huffington Post, and is an Ambassador for Inclusive Minds, a collective that aims to improve diversity and inclusion in young peoples’ fiction. She is AccessAble’s North West Champion, promoting accessibility guides in cities across the UK, and in 2019, the University of Hull – in partnership with Team GB – recognised her as one of their Extraordinary People for her work in disability advocacy.

nosuperhero.co.uk

Frank Gardner OBE

Journalist

Following successful military and  banking  careers, Frank joined the BBC World Service in 1995 as a producer and reporter, before becoming the BBC’s Gulf Correspondent two years later. In 1999 Frank became BBC Middle East Correspondent

In 2002, following world events and speaking fluent Arabic, Frank became the BBC’s the Security Correspondent, reporting from the frontlines on major world events. Frank has covered stories from recruits learning to defuse bombs in Afghanistan, to embedding with merchant sailors investigating piracy off the Somali coast. He’s also taken on two Arctic challenges. 

On 6 June 2004, while reporting from a suburb of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Gardner was shot six times and seriously injured in an attack by al-Qaeda sympathisers. His colleague Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers was shot dead. He was left partly paralysed in the legs and dependent on a wheelchair for life.

After 14 operations, 7 months in hospital and months of rehabilitation he returned to reporting for the BBC in mid-2005, using a wheelchair or a frame. The same year he was awarded an OBE by the Queen for his services to journalism. 

As a BBC correspondent, Frank has an audience of millions. In 2018 he used this influence to highlight the difficulties many disabled travellers face, when he reported live from a plane he was stuck on because his wheelchair had been sent to the wrong place. When the same thing occurred within six months, Frank was able again to draw much-needed attention to the poor provision for disabled people navigating airports, in a bid to help others experiencing similar situations.

In addition to his reporting, Frank is the author of a number of bestselling books, amongst them the memoir Blood and Sand describing his Middle East experiences, Far Horizons describing unusual journeys to unusual places, and his fiction debut Crisis, a spy thriller set in Colombia which was followed by Ultimatum, the second in the series.

frankgardner.co.uk

Dr Frances Ryan

Journalist, Academic and Activist

Frances is an award-winning journalist, author, and political commentator. She writes a weekly Guardian column, Hardworking Britain, which has been at the forefront of social affairs coverage in recent years. 

Frances uses her platform to speak out about the many forms of inequality in the UK, and to bring underreported issues to light. She was highly commended Specialist Journalist of the Year at the 2019 National Press Awards for her work on disability, as well as shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils 2019. 

Frances regularly contributes to television and radio, including BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and The World Tonight, BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Sunday Politics, Channel 4 News and more. She has a doctorate in politics from The University of Nottingham, and guest lectures at universities and events around the country. 

Frances, who has generalised muscle weakness and is a wheelchair user, speaks openly about balancing her disability and a busy job, using the flexibility of freelancing to work around her own varying energy levels. “There’s still a real lack of disabled people in the public eye, and it’s easy to feel like the media isn’t for people like us. I want young people with disabilities and health conditions to know it’s absolutely possible, with the right support. Our voices are hugely important.”

This summer, Frances’ debut book, Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People, was released with Verso. The book calls for a more equal Britain for disabled people and has been praised by figures ranging from Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, I, Daniel Blake director Ken Loach, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, to Lee Ridley, the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. 

Book – Crippled, Austerity and the demonization of disabled people 

Column

Emily White

Department of Ability

Emily, 13, is an independent and vocal disability campaigner, passionate about seeing equality for her and others in the disabled community, and is the star of her own disability hero comic, ‘The Department of Ability’. Emily has spina bifida, hydrocephalus, scoliosis, autism and chiari, and uses a wheelchair. She wanted to read things with characters like her, so – along with her cartoonist dad Dan – she is creating the things she would like to read. 

This year Emily’s short story was published in a Young Writers Anthology, helping change the narrative around childhood disability. She wants all children, whatever their abilities, to be seen for all they can contribute and achieve.

Emily has influenced a lot of social change, from overseeing access improvements to local play parks, to the opening of several Changing Places accessible toilets. She is an ambassador for Parallel London and is soon to become a Variety Club youth ambassador too. As the face of Department of Ability, and through her ongoing work on access and inclusion, she is reaching out to children worldwide. With her family, Emily delivered a 40,000 signature petition to 10 Downing Street calling for a disabled children’s minister to be appointed.

She has received celebrity support from Paralympian Hannah Cockcroft, and actor Sally Phillips amongst others, but it is through her own media appearances that she has become a figurehead for her friends, both disabled and not, by showing them the positive changes one person can affect.

Her TV appearances, including BBC News and the Apprentice, have led her to becoming one of the UK’s most prominent young disabled people, her influence reaching hundreds of disabled people and celebrities across the country. This summer she has also been shortlisted for the ITV News Diversity Awards.

departmentofability.com