"Disability activist Geoff Bell leads significant advocacy”
Item
- Title
- "Disability activist Geoff Bell leads significant advocacy”
- Description
- In the 1970s, Geoff Bell was a disability activist who, after a diving accident left him quadriplegic at age 21, was placed in a nursing home. Not accepting nursing homes as appropriate residences for young people, he wrote to the then Minister for Social Security Bill Hayden. The letter was presented to parliament. In April 1978, Geoff Bell led ten members of the Disabled People’s Action Forum as they blockaded the entrance to a Medibank claims office for an hour. The protest was held outside Medibank to raise awareness of the architectural barriers to conducting personal business when Medibank was supposed to be of service. Signs held by the members read “We don’t need a stairway to paradise, We want ramps to independence".
- Identifier
- AC00028
- Publisher
- Disability Arts History Australia
- datePublished
- 1970s
- creator
- Geoff Bell
- category
- Action
- Type
- Create Action
- Format
- Text
- inLanguage
- English
- keywords
- Disability Politics and Activism, Advocacy and awareness raising, Equity and non-discrimination, Participation in political and public life, Health and rehabilitation
- copyrightNotice
- © Disability Arts History Australia, Contributed by Annie Rolfe
- Item sets
- Action
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