Scottish
Disability Equality Forum 
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Scottish
Disability Equality Forum |
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Current Activities What
does SDEF do?
SDEF is working in partnership with a range of
organisations to bring about change and put equality firmly on the
agenda.
Convenor's Report to AGM, 9th July 2001 This
occasion of our AGM has been chosen to re-launch the organisation, which had
barely got started before events overtook us.
Thank you for your loyalty, and for bearing with us through what has been
a very difficult period for our fledging organisation.
It is said that adversity breeds strength - well if this is the case, we
must be the toughest group in the country.
We had barely got started when our original mandated Secretariat
disappeared - it left us without any means of financial support for more
than 6 months at a particularly vulnerable time. Despite this, the Management
Committee worked on, lobbying everyone we could think of for help - refusing to
let the Forum die without a fight. This was made possible, temporarily, due to the generosity of
their parent groups, paying their
own travelling expenses, or donations from some other member organisations.
I, as Convenor, would just like to say a personal thank you on behalf of
the Management Committee for answering my plea for financial help.
This
first year has had its ups and down in more ways than one, but finally our
tenacity has paid off, and after many delays, our new Secretariat, provided by
SCVO with funding from Scottish Executive is in place, and thankfully these
difficulties are behind us. I am glad to report we are now entering a positive
phase with a clear way forward to achieving what we originally set out to do.
Those of you who attended the recent Research Conference at Heriot Watt
will know from the Minister Jackie Baillie's speech that it has been decided to
fund both the SDEF and Inclusion Scotland on a short term basis until the
situation becomes clearer. This
gives us a breathing space which we must exploit, and means the future is now
very much in our own hands, and we must seize this opportunity with both hands
to prove to everyone we have the ability, commitment,
drive and ambition to achieve anything we set out to do.
I cannot stress strongly enough, that this is a vital proving time for
us, and is not a time to falter.
It
is our strongly held belief that there is strength in numbers, and that
organisations working together (however diverse they may appear on the surface)
as long as they have similar aims and a common goal,
are able to exert more power and pressure.
With this in mind, we have made approaches to several established
consortia with positive results. Rest
assured this can be done without compromising our own deeply held convictions,
that our destiny lies in our own hands. The
furtherance of this aim was another reason for inviting our speakers and
workshop leaders to-day.
Elma
Mitchell MBE, Convenor
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Working together for the disability movement SDEF is a recognised Scottish charity no. SC031893 end of page |
