Remoulding Attitudes Toward Disability, UK

Main Category: Multiple Sclerosis
Article Date: 26 Nov 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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The MS Society has given its full support to a unique campaign launched by Leonard Cheshire Disability, which aims to challenge and change people's attitudes toward disability.

The disability charity has teamed up with Aardman Animations to create Creature Discomforts, based on the much-loved Creature Comforts series but featuring the hallmark Plasticine characters voiced by people with disabilities including multiple sclerosis (MS).

The characters include wheelchair-user Peg the Hedgehog, Spud the Slug in his mobility scooter and Tim the Tortoise on crutches and carry the voices and experiences of real people living with MS.

Matthew Trainer, Head of Communications at the MS Society, said: "Creature Discomforts will raise issues faced by people living with disabilities in a way that has not been done before. We hope this will challenge the discrimination and ignorance that people with MS face."

The animations use the genuine voices of a number of disabled people describing in their own words the negative attitudes and barriers they experience, which separate them from society.

One of the four animations addresses a common assumption that people in wheelchairs are not able to speak for themselves.

The animation opens with Spud the Slug, who is in an electric wheelchair. The character is voiced by John Marrows of Chesterfield who was diagnosed with MS in 1986. In the advert he can be heard saying that "…many people say - oh you're in a wheelchair - you can't do anything. A lot of it is ignorance."

Peg the Hedgehog, voiced by Sheila Morgan who also has MS, appears next in the clips, sitting in her wheelchair having a cup of tea. She says: "People have assumed that wheels mean… nothing up here in the brain, you know." The Creature Discomforts characters will appear in adverts online, in magazines, at bus stops and on the London Underground. In January, the animations will be aired on ITV.

Bryan Dutton, Director General, Leonard Cheshire Disability said: "We want people to change the way they see disability, to think and act differently and to make a positive difference to the lives of disabled people and we are delighted that the MS Society supports our campaign.

"Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance. In the twenty-first century it is unacceptable that such negative attitudes to disability still persist. Everyone has a part to play in creating a world in which disabled people are included in every aspect of life."

See more of the campaign and the characters themselves at http://www.CreatureDiscomforts.org.

http://www.mssociety.org.uk