Disability Rights and Dignities

For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest - often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, disabled people are still treated as different. Join campaigners and authors **Rachel Charlton-Dailey** and **Stephen Unwin** for a powerful examination of disability rights in history and today.

From the ‘crippled suffragette’, to ’80s punks chaining themselves to buses, to campaigners taking a stand online, **Rachel Charlton-Dailey** celebrates the amazing activists and protest actions behind the UK’s long battle for disabled people’s rights to live. An award-winning disabled journalist, activist and author, Rachel's work highlights an overlooked tradition of disabled struggle and unpacks how British attitudes and policy went so wrong in the twenty-first century.

**Stephen Unwin** is one of Britain's leading theatre and opera directors. He founded English Touring Theatre in 1993 and opened the Rose Theatre Kingston in 2008. He is a campaigner for the rights and opportunities of people with severe learning disabilities. His book, *Beautiful Lives*, is a personal account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, his work uncovers a startling and rarely told history - one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.

Presented by Conway Hall.

This is an all ages event. Under 16's must be accompanied by an adult.