Stand up for Human Rights

I am still reeling from watching a BBC 3 series on Disability where a young 20 year old wheelchair user is looking for somewhere to live and social services send her to an old people’s home instead.

“In These Shoes” would not be a programme about non-disabled people replicating/acting out impairments, but looking at the equivalent scenario so they can compare and contrast experiences. It would become, instead, a programme where young people, both disabled and non-disabled, have their rights taken from them and are thus required to explore what they can do, together, to fight injustice. This could have a national and international reach. Teenagers are our future and we are fucking it up for them and we have to give them the toolkit to survive and navigate the system. We also have a great deal to learn from them too.

This could be a wider Human Rights Arts Night type programme. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was central to our ethos, literally and politically, when I co-directed the Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Paralympic Games. I am passionate about it being more than simply a paper document; it is everyone’s responsibility to embrace and engage with it as a crucial, living document in the 21st Century, even filling in the gaps where necessary.

Jenny Sealey, M.B.E. (@GraeaeJennyS) is the Artistic Director of the Graeae Theatre and was co-director of the 2012 Paralympic Games