At September’s #1stWed, Jodie Wilkinson, drew from her experience as Glasgow Film’s Public Engagement Coordinator and shed some light on how to pro-actively overcome equality, diversity and access challenges in the arts and culture in Scotland. Here are some of the key points from her talk.

What is equality?
Equality is ensuring individuals or groups of individuals are treated fairly and equally and no less favourably, specific to their needs, including areas of race, gender, disability, religion / belief, sexual orientation and age.
Promoting equality should remove discrimination in all of the aforementioned areas. Bullying, harassment or victimisation is also considered as equality and diversity issues

What is diversity?
Diversity aims to recognise, respect and value people’s differences to contribute and realise their full potential by promoting an inclusive culture for all staff and students.

Interesting Statistics on disability

• Disabled people in Scotland: 1,126,391 (20% of the population)
• People with hearing loss, deafness or deaf: 729,000
• People with serious sight condition: 200,000
• Wheelchair users: 120,000
• Autism Spectrum Disorder: 50,000
• Adults with learning disabilities: 27,391More on disability
• One in 4 people will experience mental health problems.
• One in 5 Scots with disabilities have experienced harassment because of their disability.
• 47% have experienced hate crime because of their disability leaving them feeling scared, embarrassed, humiliated and stressed by the attacks which happened in public spaces.More on Autism
• 1 in 100 people have autism.
• Autism is a spectrum condition.
• Autism can be accompanied by learning disabilities and/or mental health issues.
• Expressing their own emotions can make it very hard for them to navigate the social world.
• Many autistic people have intense and highly focused interest like film.
  
  Living with hearing loss or deafness
• Around 1,012,000 people in Scotland with some degree of hearing loss.
• Approximately 546,000 are over the age of 60.
• An estimated 2 million people in the UK with hearing aids.
• 1 in 6 people use British Sign Language (BSL).
• Deaf users of BSL see themselves as people within a linguistic minority not disabled
• Scotland passed the BSL bill in September 2015
• In Scotland the ratio of qualified interpreters to sign language users is estimated to around 1 interpreter for every 200 sign language users.
  
  You can also check out Glasgow Film’s Visible Cinema Project to explore living with hearing challenges. Key Statistics on dementia
• In Glasgow 18.5% are over the age of 60.
• By 2037, dementia within the 65-74 age group would have grown to 25%.
  

  “In the cinema you are away from the world outside…It’s escapism… I want to see other ways of life… I like the chance to be social.”

  ”I always want to go to these kinds of events. I enjoy them. Good to see outreach to communities.”

  Jodie’s  takeaway points

• Create inclusive and accessible environments for your audience.
• Increase target audiences through the use of accessible technology.
• Collaborate and communicate ‘with’ and not ‘on’ your audience.
• Be truthful and transparent about required resources.
  

  In conclusion:“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood…Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
  Universal Declaration of Human Right- 1948
  
  Testimonials from participants at screenings

  “It was great to meet someone like me”
  “Nice for our community to have more options rather than a limited choice of what we can and can’t see”

  “Visible cinema is a fantastic idea. I love the idea of regular caption/subtitles films (both old and new) as well as mixing with other groups of people including hard of hearing. Can’t wait for more of the same!”