World Braille Day is on 4 January 2022, with that in mind we have chosen Amy Kavanagh as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amy is a blind activist and freelance disability consultant who uses social media to share her experiences as a low vision Londoner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She advocates through writing, policy influencing and public speaking. She is engaged with a variety of disability issues ranging from accessible gaming, disability hate crime, digital inclusion, public transport and disabled women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2018 Amy started the #JustAskDontGrab hashtag, a now globally recognised campaign which raises awareness of the experiences of unwanted touching which many disabled people experience when navigating life in public. Over the last year, #JustAskDontGrab has also become a focal point for disabled women to share their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. Amy continues to campaign for disabled people to have their consent and boundaries respected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When COVID-19 put the country into lockdown, Amy established The Staying Inn as an online space for disabled people feeling isolated during the pandemic. The pub has grown to a community of more than 2500 disabled and non-disabled people who enjoy events including quizzes, craft clubs, activist interviews and skills workshops. The Staying Inn has become a model for providing online accessible events and now delivers digital inclusion training for individuals and businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In November 2020, Amy was partnered with Guide Dog Ava. This golden retriever diva has supported Amy to rebuild her confidence and embrace her independence after a difficult year. Amy hopes to continue building communities and spaces for disabled people to share their lived experience and campaign for a more inclusive world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2021 Amy came fourth in The Disability Power 100 list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To find out more about Amy see here https:\/\/amykavanagh.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n To find out more about the Staying Inn see here https:\/\/www.thestayinginn.org.uk\/<\/a> To find out more about World Braille Day see here https:\/\/brailleworks.com\/what-is-world-braille-day\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" World Braille Day is on 4 January 2022, with that in mind we have chosen Amy Kavanagh as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the month. Amy is a blind activist and freelance disability consultant who …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/diversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}