Creature Discomforts campaign 'to change attitudes to disability' » Communities » 24dash.com

Leonard Cheshire Disability unveils six, brand new Creature Discomforts characters online today, ahead of a six week campaign to change attitudes to disability.

Disabled people have the same desires and aspirations as non-disabled people, in work, education and relationships. The new animations will challenge the people’s low expectations about what disabled people can do.

The new characters created by Aardman Animations, the team behind Wallace and Gromit, are based on the unscripted voices of young disabled people talking about the issues that affect their lives. One animation challenges public perceptions of disabled people, relationships and sex.

It opens with a mouse with a physical impairment saying: “Some people think because you have a disability you should be with someone with a disability. It doesn’t always work like that.” An elephant steps into the frame and kisses the mouse on the head as she says: “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

The animation cuts to a field full of baby rabbits, with a female rabbit in a wheelchair saying: “Well, they think that if you’re disabled you can’t have a love life.  That’s not true though.  I can have sex!”

The voice behind the rabbit is 22 year old Issy Bulmer, who lives at Leonard Cheshire Disability’s Lavender Fields in Hitchin.

Speaking about her comment Issy who is a wheelchair user said: “In January I got engaged to my boyfriend Beany. I think people might be surprised that we can enjoy sex. A friend recently asked how I had sex and I said ‘Just the same way you do’.

"She didn’t mean it badly, she was just curious and it was forgotten about after that.

“When I’m out with Beany I don’t notice people looking at us because I use a wheelchair, but we have walked past people and I think I’ve heard them comment about that. They never say anything directly to us, so we just ignore them and walk past.”

Leonard Cheshire Disability’s new report on perceptions of disability and relationships, Up Close and Personal, challenges long-held assumptions that disabled people don’t – or can’t – have a relationship.

Key findings include:

• Disabled people have exactly the same hopes and anxieties about relationships as non-disabled people.
• Two thirds (68 per cent) of disabled respondents have relationships with non-disabled people.
• Both disabled and non-disabled people have low expectations of disabled people’s relationships.

The Aardman team has created another four characters for the charity’s campaign including a blind chameleon, an owl and a shrimp in wheelchairs, and a hearing impaired Cheshire cat.

Bryan Dutton, Leonard Cheshire Disability’s Director General said: “Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance. The public’s low expectations, especially of their ability to have relationships, play a big part in this.

“We want people to change the way they see disability, to think and act differently and to engage with disabled people in all aspects of life.”

For a preview of the campaign visit www.CreatureDiscomforts.org and tell the charity what you think about it in the online forum. From next Wednesday and throughout the summer the characters will appear in adverts on ITV, online and at bus stops.