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Michele Poet hasn't added a story.
I am Andy's wife
I've launched this campaign to raise money so that we can take Andy's disability discrimination case to court.
We've been married for nearly 24 years. Andy is registered deaf and
has a degenerative bone and tissue disorder, hypermobility and has
ADD.
Despite these challenges and being over 50 he is a second year
university student intent on retraining for a future career. Sadly he
has come up against a number of barriers at his university all of
which have been avoidable and all of which have taken a great deal of
effort and determination to try and overcome.
Here's just one example: since the disabled library lift was put
out of order in October he has been distracted and demotivated from
his studies while he fought to get access to the library so that he
could research in the same way as other non-disabled students.
The effect of all this has been to make Andy feel he is not
valued as a human being and that he is not welcome as a disabled
student and he has on more than one occasion been so despondent he has
considered abandoning the course he has worked hard and paid for.
It seems that the only way to make the University take its
responsibilities to disabled students seriously is to take them to
court for disability discrimination. Although it is against UK law to
discriminate against disabled people there is no organisation
enforcing this. The only way to get a judgement is to go to civil
court and that costs money.
Legal aid is only available for the very poorest in society as it has
been cut back to the bone. We have a month to get our court papers
filed. We need to cover the court filing fees and prepayable hearing
costs. Any money left over after that will be spent on getting legal
advice.
So far we've had some advice from the Equality Advisory Service
but they don't give legal advice as such they simply guide you through
the legislation but even they got to the stage where they went further
than is usual and actually felt it necessary to write to the
university on our behalf in an attempt to get a response from them.
Please help. It is very disheartening to watch Andy having his
time at university derailed by all this. He should be learning and
studying and planning for his future and not being bogged down by
being made to feel subhuman. It is bad enough my brave husband has to
struggle against constant pain, tinnitus, and concentration
difficulties every single day without thoughtless discrimination
adding to his burdens.
I am so proud of him because he is prepared to take this stand.
He says most of the disabled students are youngsters and don't have
the confidence to stand up for themselves so he feels it is up to him
to do what is right.
Our son is on the same course in the same university in the year below and he has some of the same conditions as his father and Andy wants to be a good father and set a good example.
Please help us raise this money and make a stand for disabled
students rights and maybe we can change things for the better.
The problem is that papers need to be filed within a month or we will
time-out and lose our ability to take this to court. There is a 6
month time limit from October and we had to go through the university
internal procedure and that took until last week to get through. So we
don't have much time left to raise the money.
Andy is a photography student and I've chosen one of the
portraits he took of a friend's dog for our campaign picture because
when you see how much that puppy trusted and liked Andy to take the
picture it might give you an idea of what a nice person he is and how
he deserves to be treated with respect and consideration and not with
discrimination. Thank you for reading this very long story.
Perks
- 3 claimed
I am a best selling poet with three poetry books out of a series (The Alternative Poetry Books) of seven already published. I will put a list of supporters names (if you want to be listed) at the back of the next book in the series for all who donate more than £5.00. The image below is of the first book in the series which came out in 2009.
- 2 claimed
I am a best selling poet with 3 published books so far out of 7 of the Alternative Poetry Books series. If you donate more than £50 I will dedicate a poem to you or to someone else of your choosing in one of my new books in the series. The image shown is of my Yellow Alternative Poetry Book the first in the series which came out in 2009.
- 0 claimed
- 4 remaining
I will dedicate a poetry book to you or to a person of your choosing. I have brought out three of my Alternative Poetry Book series so far, the yellow, pink and blue editions. The ones to come are the green, red, purple, and orange editions. The yellow edition is the one pictured and it came out in 2009.
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- 3 claimed
I am a best selling poet with three poetry books out of a series (The Alternative Poetry Books) of seven already published. I will put a list of supporters names (if you want to be listed) at the back of the next book in the series for all who donate more than £5.00. The image below is of the first book in the series which came out in 2009.
- 2 claimed
I am a best selling poet with 3 published books so far out of 7 of the Alternative Poetry Books series. If you donate more than £50 I will dedicate a poem to you or to someone else of your choosing in one of my new books in the series. The image shown is of my Yellow Alternative Poetry Book the first in the series which came out in 2009.
- 0 claimed
- 4 remaining
I will dedicate a poetry book to you or to a person of your choosing. I have brought out three of my Alternative Poetry Book series so far, the yellow, pink and blue editions. The ones to come are the green, red, purple, and orange editions. The yellow edition is the one pictured and it came out in 2009.
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