Disability campaigner demands action to help ethnic minorities left on margins

Disabled people from ethnic minorities are being excluded from
services, according to the Greater London Action on Disability
Count Us In project manager.

Jimmy Telesford told a workshop on how to include ethnic minorities
within the disability movement that their exclusion was a “passive
form” of institutionalised racism.

“The first and most uncomfortable thing I discovered is that there
are lots of disabled people from ethnic minorities living on the
margins of things,” he said. “These groups aren’t hard to reach.
They are excluded.”

Telesford added that, among professionals, there were still
negative attitudes towards disabled people from ethnic minorities
accessing services, especially in mental health provision.

“There’s an assumption that they can do things for themselves so
they don’t really need services,” he said.