LPF celebrates International Day of Disabled People 2015

Level Playing Field (LPF) are once again happy to be celebrating the UN International Day of Disabled People (IDDP 2015), an annual event that promotes the benefits of inclusivity and the positive role that disabled people play within society, and to raise awareness and understanding of disability issues.

This years’ theme is ‘Inclusion matters: access and empowerment…’, with the following three sub-themes:

Making cities inclusive and accessible for all
Improving disability data and statistics
Including persons with invisible disabilities in society and development

Disabled people are the largest minority group in any population, and it is vital that they have the opportunity to take their rightful place within society, including enjoying live sporting events.

Sport has a unique capacity to bring people together. As such, access and inclusion and the assurance of accessible sports stadia is essential for disabled people to take their rightful places and to participate fully within our society. For this to be possible, it is important to remove the stereotypes and for all barriers to inclusion to be removed (societal, physical, sensory, intellectual and attitudinal).

At Level Playing Field we work every day to improve access for disabled sports fans through our Access Audit programme and our ongoing works. LPF’s access audits are specifically designed for sports venues and arenas. Read more about our Access Audit programme here.

We are also passionate about using the unique power of sport to empower disabled people. Our Working Together project was set up in 2011 to support clubs and supporters to form pan-disability, user led Disabled Supporters Associations (DSA’s). Since the inception of this project, we have successfully supported the establishment of 9 independent, user led DSA’s who are working in positive dialogue with their clubs.

Level Playing Field would be delighted to hear about how you are celebrating International Day of Disabled People 2015, and will be pleased to share your stories with our network. Please email us at info@levelplayingfield or tweet @lpftweets and use the hashtag #united4access.