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Chamber
Focuses on Discrimination
FIFE
CHAMBER is urging businesses to come along to a disability
awareness seminar it’s holding next Tuesday.
Sandra
Wilson, development co-ordinator of Fife Employability Network,
will highlight the importance of disability awareness in legal,
financial and business terms.
The
seminar will demonstrate that disability awareness is simply
about taking steps to ensure that people with disabilities are
treated equally when using a service, applying for a job or
doing a job. It will
offer simple tips to help businesses.
There
are approximately nine million people in the UK with a
disability and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)
aims to combat the discrimination faced by many in their
pursuance of normal, every-day life.
Focusing
on attitudes towards disability, the layout and physical
features of premises and service provision, the Act makes it
illegal to treat someone with a disability less favourably than
others.
Businesses
and service providers are required to make ‘reasonable
adjustments’ to make sure this doesn’t happen.
“Disability”
covers sensory impairments such as deafness and blindness,
hidden impairments such as epilepsy and learning difficulties
and progressive illnesses such as AIDS and cancer.
Alan
Russell, chief executive of Fife Chamber, said: “All businesses
must take the DDA into account and have the procedures and
mechanisms in place to ensure compliance.
“Showing
disability awareness will mean that people with disabilities,
their family and friends will be more likely to use your
service.
“About
one in five people in Scotland have a disability or longterm
health problem, a substantial percentage of the population of
Scotland, so in business terms, compliance makes perfect
sense.”
The
seminar is at the Chamber’s offices at Wemyssfield Road, Kirkcaldy
on Tuesday (October 30) between 12.00-2pm.
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