A year of success for We Are The People

Dr Tanvir Bush reflects on a year of success for the We Are The People project.

In September 2022, We Are The People (a Wellcome-funded research project) in partnership with Corsham Town Council and several community and local sports groups, ran a Festival of Disability and Inclusion in the heart of Corsham. 

Initially, the idea had been to connect the Deaf/Disabled People's Organisations (DDPOs) in the wider area and bring them together into a central hub. However, in the whole of Wiltshire, although there were many great community groups and charities, there was only one other DDPO!  

The Festival therefore, aimed to encourage discussion and feedback about disability and inclusion in the locality and see whether potential action for change was wanted and how it might be instigated. 

The Festival also included exhibitions, sports taster events, coffee mornings, panel discussions, graffiti walls, theatre companies and even a TEDx talk. In the final two town hall public engagement events, the possibility of forming a local DDPO was put forward and there was overwhelming support for the idea. 

Opening channels for change 

Exactly one year on from the Inclusion Festival, on 18 September 2023, ‘SameDifference!’ — the Corsham area’s new DDPO — was officially formed and work began immediately by feeding back into the Corsham Transport Plan. 

Organised and run by local disabled people, ‘SameDifference’ intends to develop into a support hub and information and advisory group for Corsham and the surrounding area. Exciting times ahead! 

This is one of the strands of work, which forms the wider We Are The People project. Tanvir is one of the many researchers working on this project. Other themes of research within the project are exploring Activism and Protest and LGBTQIA+ communities. We'll be updating you further on these soon...