The Process
It is also worth noting that to replace the term non-geographical community or disability community with the term community of people with disability widens the potential scope of the project to include everyone. The “with disability” suffix becomes a qualifier for the concept of community rather than a categorization. Therefore, for the Derry City Council area to be inclusive becomes a “community of people with” a range of suffix such as ethnicity, disability, equality, etc.
An interesting anomaly emerged from the consultation that whilst there is not an overarching disability community there are a number of sub communities which define themselves by the disability for example the blind community. This, however, was the only example that was offered.
After preliminary discussions between the Verbal Arts Centre and Derry City Council it was agreed that to make the project feasible within the timescale and budget it would be necessary to reduce the original four disability categories presented at the tender stage i.e. mental, disability, learning and physical to two – Learning and Physical.
Consultation has demonstrated that this demarcation was not as viable as may have been expected. Many of the respondents drew attention to this reduction in the project brief stating that whilst they could understand the logic of the decision it did not reflect the complexity of disability either as a medical condition or as a status generated through various and multiple social relations. An example of this complexity was a person with a learning disability who has also a mental disability, such as manic depression, a hidden disability, such as dyslexia and a physical disability, such as partial sight.
Many respondents suggested that the selection of two disability categories i.e. physical and learning could potentially discriminate against some people. Again emphasis was placed by the respondents on the person rather than the disability. Therefore the project should be with people first and disability second.
To remedy this perceived imbalance in the project brief it was suggested, for example, to undertake a project using a cross slice of the general community e.g. 18 year olds and to include able-bodied and disabled young people with the context of the stories and connected themes to create meaning. Other suggestions for the project favoured one disability being selected and promoted clearly. However, this was accompanied by the expectation that there would be similar projects for each of the disability categories.
