An Update: Disability Arts Time
Do you people like disability arts? Yeah – me too. I think it’s time to focus on them for a while. I’ve been searching for work for 10 years, and after taking a DWP Work and Health Capability assessment over the phone, I was told I don’t need to search for work via the Job Centre anymore. In all honesty, it was shocking. This means I’m going to stop doing anything and simply retire, because that’s just my game.
Yeah, right! It’s time to pick up useful skills, and do something for you, my beloved disabled friends.
After the DWP made this decision, I received a fair bit of financial backup and spare time to use. I got my point across on the phone. However, I’ve scheduled this time to take on board education I can genuinely work with. I’ll tell you more about that later.
Heads Up: Disability Arts are Coming Soon
Whether they are visual, literary, performing, or culinary, arts are something I’m more than happy to speak about. Expect any kind of blog posts that speak about disabled people’s artistic endeavours. I have already arranged plans to speak with artists online.
If you read my blog regularly, you’ll know that I believe that we make disability arts even more majestic if they speak a message. Written songs so often do so, and let’s not forget that a picture can speak a thousand words as well.
Plus, literary arts obviously have their uses too! During the pandemic era of 2020, I wrote the first draft of a young adult novel. It’s a story which involves a 15-year-old disabled protagonist. My creative writing skills aren’t top notch, but I like the plot, and I think other people will too. In the future, I want to split the credit for the novel with another author. I don’t have time to gain creative writing skills.
Interested in learning more? Please, contact me via social media if you’d like to get involved.
Feel Free to Take Notes
If you want to learn more about an interesting creative writer, I recommend checking out the work of Amie Maria Marie. I recently read her published book Scrounge, a play she released earlier this year. Critically acclaimed, it speaks openly and honestly about the difficulties disabled people face when aiming to obtain Personal Independence Payments in the UK.
Plus, I’ll soon speak with disabled musician Molly Joyce living in the USA. She uses an alternative and innovative method to play music, which expresses a clear-cut message to others about the feelings of disabled individuals. I’ll be having an interview with Molly next month.
I’ll also tell you a bit about a disabled artist who I’ve had a relationship with before I was even born! Although I don’t think speaking about disability rights is so typical with the work she does, I love it, and think a wide variety of other individuals will too.
Primary Focus: Implanting Project Management
Yes, project management is going to be my primary focus. Some people pick up the skills needed to master project management so quickly and easily. Although it won’t be a walk in the park for me, I know it must be done.
The jobs that people do and even the lives that people live so often involve an element of project management. For example, back at the end of July, I had to move out of my home in Salford. In order to do this, I had to ring around and find the best-priced location to store my goods temporarily. As well as that, I had to research and find the best way to transfer my belongings to the location, and make sure I did the complete process within my pre-set budget.
However, I could have done a lot more project management on a much more regular basis – if I had a job. I’ve been unemployed because of my disability, and I do struggle to take care of tasks immediately. But now I’m not having to search for work, I want to get used to being organised, and focus on educating myself on the subject I need to know most about.
Upcoming Plans
One fact is that there’s never been too much pressure on me to exploit what I write within a blog to others professionally. I wouldn’t say it doesn’t look professional, but it needs to be better advertised, and social media is so under-used by myself right now.
I’ve networked before, and still do, but not as much as I could. I guess popularising The Disability Issue could be the starting point of what I know will be a long list of projects throughout my career. I then see myself as developing into a program manager (who takes care of multiple projects), and then a portfolio manager (who takes care of multiple programs throughout an organisation). I’ve always been an ambitious person, and I know it’ll be for the greatest good.
I want to get started professionally, though. I’m an independent individual, and can’t say social media is the most appealing tool I like to use. But, it’s got to be used to gain success, so I need to pick up some skills.
I’ve mentioned some ideas I’ve had on The Disability Issue already, but, trust me – there’s plenty of other things I want to offer others in the future too. I’ve just got to plan them out!
The People’s History Museum
Go to The People’s History Museum in Spinningfields, Manchester. What’s there is the best exhibit I’ve ever seen that offers an insight into the history of disabled people’s lives in the UK. I think you should tell other people about, too – even non-disabled people or those who know a lot about disability rights.
I’ll be heading back there to make more notes. My memory isn’t a good one, but I want to memorise why, what, when and how disabled people have had to deal with what has too often been a traumatic history.
If you haven’t watched it, I also recommend watching the BBC documentary Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain. It’s presented by disabled children’s CBeebies presenter, Cerrie Burnell. She contributes part of her life story towards an exploitation of the truth about how the UK’s disabled people have truly lived their lives in the past.
I believe we should take a different approach to dealing with our issues. We’ve been working with the Social Model of Disability for a long time. I have other plans, and you can read more about them in my blog post about Disability Central.
We certainly deserve to be remembered. Don’t forget that, and please, try had to make it to Manchester while the exhibition is up and running – from now until 16 November 2023.
