Disability Pride month takes place each July and is an opportunity to both raise awareness of all disabilities and celebrate everything that people with disabilities bring to society and our communities. 

We have so many fantastic members, activists, candidates and councillors who have disabilities and we really want to encourage you to take this month as an opportunity to highlight them and the work they do – and also find ways to better engage and celebrate people and organisations beyond the Lib Dems from the disabled community. It’s important to note here that you should ask and talk to anyone who you want to highlight to ensure they are comfortable with you doing so and that it is done in a way that they are happy with.

It’s also a great time to think as a Lib Dem team about how you can be more inclusive in your approach to events, welcoming new members, finding candidates, supporting people with disabilities in your communities and more. 

To help you we are including below links to some resources which we hope you will find useful. 

• Toolkit: Supporting Councillors and Candidates with Disabilities
• Toolkit: Equality and Diversity
• Campaign Pack: Town & Parish Councils – Improving Accessibility
• Council Motion: Not Every Disability is Visible
• Council Motion: Town & Parish Councils – Improving Disabled Access
• Council Motion: Accessible Shopping Districts
• Guide: Supporting neurodiversity in our local parties

We are also delighted to be hosting our second equality and diversity webinar on Tuesday 12th July 7-8pm which will be titled “Celebrating the work of Candidates and Councillors with disabilities”. You can book your place here.

There are more specialist equality and diversity webinars taking place throughout the year. You can find more details on our training page and events page here.

The Disability Pride Flag

The disability pride flag was created in 2017 by Ann Magill. You can download a jpeg here.

The colour/design has significant meaning:

• Black background: the colour of mourning for those who have suffered from ableist violence, and also rebellion and protest
• Lightning bolt: outlines how disabled people must navigate barriers
• 5 colours: represents the variety of needs and experiences (Mental Illness, Neurodiversity, Invisible and Undiagnosed Disabilities, Physical Disability, and Sensory Disabilities)
• The Parallel Stripes: solidarity within the Disability Community, despite our differences.