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The aim of the Greenwich Disabled People’s Innovation Project (GDPIP) was to built a group of deaf and disabled people in the area where we can meet ‘out of the isolation’ of the pandemic.

We made an effort to connect with different disabled people and organisations – some of whom responded and joined our workshops. but we knew the funding would run out and we would like to sustain the momentum.

We were lucky enough to secure some funding from the Young Foundation and the Queer Circle at the Design District were kind enough to provide us with a venue.

Follow us here to know how we are getting on, we will be giving more details soon!

We don’t always get to see each other that often, but I enjoy that we keep in touch on social media. We have a shared love of animals, trees, making things, social justice, and of course vegan cooking.

We’ve only got one planet, and we need to take better care of it. Very often, this also means taking better care of ourselves and each other too. Pollution, climate change, deforestation are human rights issues as well as environmental issues. The impacts of what we do have the power to create change, and it’s by sharing ideas and getting excited about them that we can learn to do better.

I will be attempting your moussaka recipe soon, with the appropriate number of cloves (not bulbs) of garlic. Your knitted mice will be watching to make sure I do it right.

This is what I’m making the next time you come down, whether by car or by boat.

Ingredients:

210g coconut cream

180g smooth peanut butter

20g icing sugar

20g golden syrup

25g dark chocolate

Method: Put a tin of coconut milk in the fridge upside down the night before you want to make this. This will separate it into a little coconut water and the coconut equivalent of clotted cream.

Scoop the top half of the tin of coconut milk into a bowl. Try not to eat it before it gets there. Save the other half of the tin to use in hot chocolate.

Add the peanut butter, icing sugar and golden syrup to the bowl.

Whisk until fluffy or the mixer (human or electric) starts to make noises. Pause, then whisk some more.

Spoon into serving dishes. Charity shops, when reopened, are a good place to hunt for pretty ones that cost about 20p.

Chop the chocolate into shards and sprinkle on the top. Put in the fridge to set slightly, or eat immediately.

Fleur enjoys experimenting with new recipes and cooking old favourites. Always assisted by someone who can take care of the chopping, lifting, and mixing, Fleur’s role in the kitchen is to create new flavour combinations, find ways of changing recipes to include what she has in the house or to work around her intolerances, and to lick the bowl.

We at Culture Access are very proud to host this webinar on the 5th October to celebrate Black History Month. This is a celebration as well as a discussion on the intersection of being Black and Disabled and other identities. We welcome everybody to join us at this webinar which will have BSL and captions.

Chair – Joanna Abeyie MBE

Joanna is an award-winning, agenda-setting Diversity champion and recruiter, social campaigner, TV executive, broadcaster and journalist. As a campaigner for diversity within the publishing, TV, Radio, Digital and Creative Industries, Joanna is regularly at the centre of the diversity agenda, leading conversations around inclusion and representation.

Julie Jaye Charles

Julie is a Black Disabled activist who advocates for racial and disability equality. She‘s been campaigning for the Black disabled community for more than three decades by setting organisations, crowdfunding, and advising the government on how to better support this demographic. Jaye Charles’s success as an activist is shown through the multiple awards she has won from Lifetime achievement award, Excellence in Diversity to the Royal Association of Disabled People. One of the organisations that Julie Jaye Charles has set up, The Equalities National Council (ENC), is the only charity which is Black and minority ethnic user-led disabled peoples organisation in the UK. The organisation is also renowned for primarily focusing on delivering expert advocacy and mentoring support on behalf of BME disabled people and their carers.

Viv Cameron

Viv is a retired barrister and former training and development officer on the executive Committee of the National Black Crown Prosecution Association. Due to chronic pain issues she identifies as disabled. As a black feminist, she is currently is active in the voluntary sector as Chair of the South East London Wool and Textile Festival. (SELWAT) and CraftA, a community arts group working to make creativity a right for everyone. She abhors hypocrisy in public life and is interested in social and creative egalitarianism, political intersectionality, charity and social enterprise compliance. She is a keen brainstormer and sometime textile artist.

Yannick Nyah

Yannick is a Founding Board Member and Director at BME VOLUNTEERS CIC, a service and goal-oriented person, with 17 years background in physical, emotional and psychological well-being best and bad practices. Yannick’s core competencies include quantitative and qualitative analysis, active listening, some complex problem solving, community outreach and engagement work, excellent communication and time-management skills.

The role requires handling multiple stakeholder, staff and client work with, accuracy and efficiency. Suffering with mental health challenges, somewhere on the spectrum and a recovering alcoholic. In 2017, he had a bicycle accident which left him needing a major knee operation and disabled. This is what has lead to his career choice today.

Maya Meikle

I am 22 years old and I have a disability. I was born with Hemiplegia, a form of Cerebral Palsy, as well as my twin sister. I am outspoken when you get to know me but, sometimes very quiet. My disability has affected me in so many ways, emotionally and physically. I am very conscious about how I look, and what people think of me. I do not like to be in the spotlights. My disability affects the right side of my body which causes a weakness in my movement. I was 3 months premature with my twin sister. I am very petite in size and weight due to my disability. As I grew older, I learnt how to accept my disability a little bit more, but I am still working to fully accept that ‘its ok to be different. As part of my degree studying Digital Film Production, I made a mini documentary about disability. For this project I wanted to create a platform where young black women who have a disability can tell their stories about what it is like living with a disability and how it impacts their day to day life. What barriers they come across and how they deal with it.

Maya’s documentary https://youtu.be/l4Qqn_idUSg

Register for Webinar https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/culture-access-28016946337. URL for webinar will be posted to those who registered.

We are working with BME Volunteers, Greenwich DPAC . Thank you for the support from Woolwich Centre Library and Bathway Theatre, Greenwich University.

Funded by the Royal Borough of Greenwich for Black History Month 2020

chinese chicken noodle soup

This is part of a new project – virtual cooking for friends during #COVID19)

I suggested a tortilla bake for Dennis previously but after a long conversation (about food and access to food among other topics) we realised that we have not heard about food and access needs for autistic people. The need for textures and ease for swallowing. Each person has their individual needs and I made this for her to follow with her PA.

Find the recipe on the Easy Chinese chicken soup and noodles page.