Translator: daniele carrieri Reviewer: Denise RQ
Good afternoon, I am Jenny. I'm deaf, with speech.
I'm the mother of a glorious 20-year-old son called Jonah.
My mum did say I could do whatever I want, but my careers officer said:
"Jenny, you're deaf, you should be a librarian."
(Laughter)
But I'm not, I'm the Artistic Director of Graeae Theatre Company.
It is the best job in the world!
I've got a cracking team back in the office,
and I work with the most extraordinary cohort
of deaf and disabled artists,
and we put them center stage.
I love my job.
What I'm going to do this afternoon,
it's just a few soundbites and the personal stories about me
and some of my deaf and disabled artists.
About what it's like working in this current climate.
Behind me in a minute, there'll be a film showing.
This group of people were my 44 deaf and disabled trainees.
We trained them up for the Paralympics
to be center stage in that stadium.
This lot, and me, are dependent on
two governmental schemes to support us:
Access to Work and Independent Living Fund.
Access to Work is the government's best kept secret.
It was, it is, and I hope it'll continue to be
the most fantastic scheme which enables me and other deaf people,
and other disabled people to enter the work force as full and equal,
to ful-fill - Why do I use words? - (Laughter)
to fulfill our role with equality.
For me, it means I can have the glorious Steve and Jeni
who you've all been watching today.
It means I can access TED Talks.
When deaf and disabled people are working, they come off benefits.
There are about 37,000 people who use Access to Work.
So we're off benefits, we're working, we pay our taxes.
And in turn, we also employ sign language interpreters,
support workers, and all the rest of it.
And in turn, they pay their taxes.
Steve, Jen, do you pay your taxes?
(Laughter)
Phew! Thank God for that!
So that's Access to Work.
The Independent Living Fund is exactly what it stands for.
It's a fund to allow disabled people
to live independently
and choose their support worker.
But in December 2012, Esther McVey,
who was the Under Secretary of State for Disabled People,
announced, just out of the blue,
the Independent Living Fund was going to close.
It's going to close in June 2015,
six weeks away.
It is now going to be managed by the local authorities.
We all know that local authorities are being cut to Smithers.
So how are they going to absorb the cost of this, I really do not know.
The pot for Independent Living fund is 320 million [pounds].
And a weekly package is around £346 a week per person.
That compares very favorably with how much it costs
for one person per week in a residential care home.
That cost is £3,500 a week.
£346 per week, £3,500 a week,
we can all do the maths can't we?
It's a very young fund actually.
Only 8.7% of people who use this are over the age of 65.
The closure of this fund is breaching Human Rights,
Article number 19, "A right to independent living",
Article 28, "The right for an adequate standard of living and protection".
When Bradley Hemmings and I started to do our work
on the Paralympic Opening Ceremony of course we registered Stephen Hawking.
Professor Stephen Hawking gave us our very first quote,
I love it, and I use it a lot:
"Don't look down at your toes, look up at the stars. Be curious."
Well, I am!
I am very curious to know why deaf and disabled people
are considered second class citizens, why we are ghettoized,
discriminated against and deemed worthless.
Can you just think for one single moment
if Stephen Hawking had been told
that they couldn't meet his access costs,
because of his physicality, his disability he shouldn't be allowed to be a scientist.
We wouldn't know about black holes or Hawking radiation,
we would not know about our cosmic Universe.
If Beethoven had stopped composing when he became deaf,
we wouldn't have the 9th Symphony, "Ode to joy".
Roosevelt, if he hadn't been able to stand for president,
because of his paralysis,
he would not have got America out of the depression,
and millions would not have benefited from his New Deal scheme.
And Frida Kahlo, can we imagine not having the artwork of Frida Kahlo?
We have so much to put in to the fabric of civilization.
I've been battling personally with Access to Work
for the last 18 months.
My first letter was, "Dear Jenny,
your hours of sign language provision is 35 hours per week.
We are changing that now to 72 hours per month.
Also, you are not allowed to use
fully qualified level 6 sign language interpreters.
because your work is not deemed 'jargon based' enough."
Excuse me? I only work with level 6.
(Laughter)
"Dear Mr. S, yes, we know you have a mobility impairment,
but can't you get a friend to help?"
"Dear Mr. K, your ILF is being cut."
"Dear Ms. G, your lip speaker hours of 23 hours a week
are now going to be 23 hours a year."
"Hello, is this Access to Work, this is Graeae's Access Coordinator speaking,
who wanted to know about BSL provision for some of our deaf actors."
"Hello, yes, this is Access to Work. What's BSL?"
(laughter)
I mean, hello?!
In this country, there are 1,900 interpreters,
that includes trainee Interpreters,
but 48% of them are thinking of quitting
because the deaf person can't guarantee to get their access support covered.
So we're going to become like Thailand,
where there are only 20 interpreters for the whole country.
Thailand, and other countries, because of cultural beliefs
think that deaf and disabled people did something very evil, something bad,
something sinful in a past life,
and that's why we've born into this life, disabled.
And you may remember,some of you,
our very own England manager Glenn Hoddle had that same philosophy.
I do find it sad that my global network with my deaf and disabled community
is founded upon a shared experience
of being discriminated against, ghettoized, and sidelined.
We have to have skin so thick
to put up with the crass attitudes and crass comments.
A Bangladeshi activist, blind, was doing some white cane training
in the Government's building in Bangla.
He arrives, the government people give him money.
They think he's a beggar because he's blind.
In Africa, so much work is being done
for those families who give birth to a disabled baby
for that baby to not be deemed a shame or an embarrassment,
for that baby to be the glorious bundle of joy that it is.
And here, last year, Graeae did a co-production of Threepenny Opera,
an audience member was very shocked;
he thought all the deaf and disabled actors
busking outside in the foyer before the show
were real buskers
not that they would be actors in the show.
So her bottom nearly fell out when she saw them on the stage,
she was like: "Oh my God, stage management,
those disabled people are on the stage!"
I love that story.
(Laughter)
"Dear Jenny, I'm M.
This is what my care package will now look like.
if it's only social services with no support from Independent Living Fund.
I will be able to have overnight, every night,
a support worker who will put me to bed and wake me up in the morning,
at lunchtime someone else will come in, give me my lunch and a cup of tea
and in the evening come and give me my dinner.
That's every day.
Per week, I will have support for 7 hours of social activity,
90 minutes for shopping,
45 minutes for ironing - I don't quite get that one -
and I will have two 15-minute slots for a full-body shower.
On a daily basis, between 9 and midday,
I will have no access to go to the bathroom, as and when I need to.
So when someone arrives at 12, I will be wet,
so most of their time will be taken bathing me and changing me.
So I'll only have time for a sandwich, and the same will be in the evening.
I will be wet, I'll need to be changed, and then it'll be a microwave meal
because there's no more time left for cooking.
That will be my life.
I need the independence to go to the bathroom
when I want to go to the bathroom!"
My friend, an actress I work with,
who has been campaigning and fighting for the survival of the ILF,
when I said to her, "Sophie, you've been at residential school all your life
you don't want to go back to a residential care home, do you?"
She said, "Jen, this is not on my radar. Jen, it can't be.
We've been fighting for thirty-odd years. No. No, it's not going to happen.
It can't happen."
"Dear Jenny, I'm a deaf graduate.
I've just got a first in Business and International Studies.
I've just had my first job.
Access to Work gave me 6 hours a day, 5 days a week so I could do my job.
I've just got a brand new job, I reapplied to Access to Work.
They've given me 3 hours a week.
I've lost my job."
And for every deaf person that loses their job,
so does a sign language interpreter, or two sign language interpreters.
So the unemployment statistics are getting two for the price of one.
Also, this one:
"Dear Jenny, Access to Work don't think it's relevant for me to have access."
"Dear Ms. M, we don't think you need access.
Yes, you have a brain injury and a mental health problem,
but you are aware of it."
Also, another one, this is actually the RNIB.
My blind friend phones up:
"Hello RNIB, my dog had a cone because he's had an ear operation.
He's managed to get the cone off.
He's been scratching his ear, I think there's blood everywhere.
What do I do? Help!"
"Oh dear, that sounds awful. Well, there's a number on his collar."
(Laughter)
"How do I access that number? I'm blind!"
And the government framework, at the moment,
for access of deaf-blind people
is that they can use sign language interpreters on a screen.
Deaf-blind sign language is a tactile language.
How you're tactile with a video screen, God only knows.
I'm very curious about all of this.
I'm curious about
how do they make these decisions to make all these cuts? How?!
I'm also curious about why people think they can say what they do to us?
"Oh, with that arm," - one of the artists in the picture -
with that arm darling, we'd never have you on our stage.
Jenny, Lorca didn't write 'Blood wedding' for people like you to be in it."
Well, I'm sorry, but when someone says no, I do it.
So, we do have a production of Lorca's "Blood wedding"
on at the Everyman,
and it's on tonight, and the last night is tomorrow.
"Dear Jenny, don't you have your own stages to go to?"
Yes we do, the Everyman Liverpool.
"Dear Jenny, don't you see
it's much more palatable
when non-disabled people play disabled characters?"
(Laughter)
And this is my bugbear which I've talked about a lot since 2012.
My glorious para-athletes, para-performers,
everything about the Paralympics, was just glorious,
and I really thought that phone would be ringing off the hook;
and it did, Channel 4 phoned and said
- well, I didn't do that, they had to be emailing me in the end -
but they said, "Dear Jenny, the Paralympics was fantastic!
Please could you put forward some of your deaf, disabled professionals
and volunteer cast for our very empowering programme,
The Undateables."
Have you seen it?
It's car crash television.
It's sick, disgusting, and I'm hell bent on getting it eradicated,
and I'd like you to join me on that.
The other thing is, at the moment,
Mark Harper has put a cap on support, - he's the Minister for disabled people -
has put a cap on access support.
So, I'm only going to be able to do
about 60% of my job with full and equal access.
I don't know how to run a theatre company, be the Chief Executive of Graeae,
be the Artistic Director of Graeae, with only 60% of support.
So, because I'm running out of time now,
I ask all of you, you will have deaf friends, and family, and colleagues,
please make yourself familiar with all the issues
in and around Access to Work and the Independent Living Fund,
and join our campaign to try and overturn these crass things.
Because, I'm sorry,
I have a lot to give to society and so have all of my lot,
and I'm damned if we're going to be sidelined.
Thank you.
(Applause)