Holly Tuke is the author behind the award-winning blog Life of a Blind Girl. She is registered blind due to a condition called Retinopathy of Prematurity, and she also has ME/CFS.

Holly was named as one of the top 100 most influential disabled people in the UK in the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 list in 2018 and 2019. She also won the Social Media Influencer of the Year award at the 2019 RNIB See Differently Awards. She has been featured in mainstream media including Alure Magazine, BBC News, The Guardian, the Huffington Post, BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio York.

Away from the blog, you can usually find Holly getting lost in an audiobook, listening to music, spending time with her friends and family, or at a concert. She works as a Social Media Officer within the charity sector for RNIB and previously worked as an Assistive Technology Advisor within higher education.

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Victoria is an award winning adaptive designer, disability advocate, speaker and writer. She has spent the past 14 years working as a garment technologist in the fashion industry before becoming disabled in her mid 20’s and has a variety of gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal conditions. This is what led to her founding Unhidden, a socially responsible universally designed fashion range for people with (and without) disabilities, which is also the first brand of its kind to join the British Fashion Council. She has written a book, The Little Book of Ableism, has done a TedX talk called 'Fighting Ableism Through Fashion' and has had extensive media coverage for her work both with Unhidden and on inclusion. Victoria is a an ambassador for Models of Diversity, Purple Tuesday and Parallels' purple sock day. She sits on the shadow board of Reflect the Agency and is part of Universal Inclusions' APPG and is shortlisted for the Shaw Trust Power 100.

Follow Victoria on Instagram and learn more about Unhidden

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Tanni Grey-Thompson realised at age 13 that Wheelchair Racing was her sport of choice. Tanni's first Paralympics was Seoul in 1988, where she won a bronze medal in the 400m. Her fifth and last Paralympic Games were in Athens (2004) where she won two gold medals in wheelchair racing in the 100m and 400m. In total in her Paralympic career she won 16 medals (11 gold, four silver and a bronze) and also 13 World Championship medals (six gold, five silver and two bronze). Over her career, Tanni broke 30 World Records on the track.

Tanni has continued to be involved in sport and physical activity. She is a Board Member of the London Marathon, the Sportsaid Foundation, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Join In. In addition to this she is also a Board Member of several organisations including Transport for London, the London Legacy Development Corporation and the London 2017 Organising Committee.

In 2010 Tanni became an Independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords, taking the title Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliffe in the County of Durham. As a working peer Tanni uses her experience and knowledge during debates in the House and she has spoken on a range of issues including Disability Rights, Welfare Reform, and of course, Sport.

Visit Baroness Thompson’s website and follow on Twitter

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Shani Dhanda is a multi-award-winning inclusion specialist and social entrepreneur listed as one of the UK's most influential disabled people by the Shaw Trust and BBC's 100 Women List 2020.

As a keynote speaker and practitioner for inclusion across business, government, non-profit and wider society, Shani helps organisations break barriers and integrate inclusion into their business frameworks.

As an influential woman in leadership, Shani has taken change into her own hands and founded numerous organisations to improve representation and challenge social inequality globally - Diversability, Asian Woman Festival, and Asian Disability Network.

Follow Shani on Instagram and visit her website

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Emma is a Labour MP and the first female representative for South Shields in Parliament, having been elected in 2013. Prior to her election, Emma was as a local Councillor and a child protection social worker. She is committed to supporting vulnerable people across her constituency alongside many other important issues. Emma was diagnosed with dyspraxia at the age of 27 and is proud to be a disabled MP.

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In this episode, Emma interviews Toby Mildon, a Diversity & Inclusion Architect and founder of Mildon, a consultancy and advisory business. Toby works with businesses to devise diversity and inclusion strategies, re-engineer processes and systems to minimise the impact of bias and build a culture of inclusion. Toby is the author of the Amazon bestselling book Inclusive Growth: futureproof your business by creating a diverse workplace. Prior to setting up his business, Toby worked as an in-house diversity and inclusion manager at the BBC and Deloitte.

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Vicky Foxcroft has been the Member of Parliament for Lewisham Deptford since 2015. Prior to her election, she served as a local councillor in the constituency and worked for a trade union for over a decade. 

Vicky served as an opposition whip for almost four years before becoming Shadow Minister for Civil Society in 2019.

When Keir Starmer took over as Labour leader in April 2020, he made Vicky his Shadow Minister for Disabled People. Since then she has fought hard to ensure that disabled people’s voices are being heard throughout the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, questioning ministers in the Commons and has met with a huge range of disabled people and Disabled People’s Organisations. 

Contact Vicky

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In our season premiere, Emma interviews Dr Hannah-Barham Brown. Named as one of the Health Service Journal’s 100 Most Influential People in Health, Hannah is a Deputy Leader of the UK Women’s Equality Party, GP trainee in Yorkshire, a Governor of the Motability Foundation, and a Council Member of the British Medical Association. Hannah has given two TEDx talks (TEDxNHS and TEDxExeter) on the need for diversity in employment and in the NHS, and being a #RollModel and regularly works with international, national and local media, (including NBC, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, BBC Breakfast and Sky News).

She brings her experiences as a neurodivergent, Queer, wheelchair-using woman to life for audiences with a combination of wit, motivation and her unique way of seeing the world. Hannah was named on the Shaw Trust’s 2018, 2019 and 2020 ‘Power Lists’ – making her one of the 100 most Influential Disabled People in the UK.

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Samantha Renke is an actress, presenter, speaker, writer and disability rights campaigner who was named as number 3 in The Shaw Trust Power 100 List of 2020 – a list of the UK’s most influential disabled people. She is a guest speaker in this year’s Happy Place Festival and her debut book, You Are The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, will be published in July by Penguin Books under its Happy Place Books imprint which is curated by Fearne Cotton.

https://smarturl.it/SlicedBreadBook

https://twitter.com/SamanthaRenke

https://www.instagram.com/samantharenke/

https://twitter.com/emma_vogelmann

https://www.instagram.com/emma.vogelmann/

https://www.thewheelchairactivist.com/

Thank you to everyone who has tuned in for this inaugural season of The Wheelchair Activist. We'll see you again in September.

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This week, Emma interviews the inspiration for this podcast, colleague Paul Fuller. Paul is the Executive Director of Partnerships for charity Scope, responsible for shaping and delivering impact, funding and reach for campaigns and services. His primary goal is finding Corporate Partners to help Scope amplify the need for everyday equality for the 14m disabled people living in the UK.

He has recently learnt the life changing importance of Partnerships as he was paired with his first Guide Dog, Bolt. Paul is also an active supporter and speaker for the charity Guide Dogs.

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