Week 3: Action week #107days

A year on from the first #107days campaign, as another soul-destroying hand grenade gets lobbed over the fence into the Justice Shed, we’ve had to dig deep this week to reconnect with our resolve and find the positive. #JusticeforLB has always been open, honest and transparent, which means it’s fair to say this week has been a bit of a struggle (when you’re effectively gagged from being as open as you’d like you get stuck chasing your tail). There’s a constant balancing act, like walking a tightrope with no end in sight.

We also reached an unusual landmark this week when Chris Hatton published this blog post Wordy Crappinghood. Out of the public gaze Liz has been archiving all the activity related to the campaign over the last year so was able to share that this was the 500th piece written relating to #JusticeforLB

So where does this leave us? We’re obviously still doing all we can to keep the awareness of what happened to LB, and what continues to happen to so many other disabled people, seen as not fully human, in the public gaze. That said, awareness is not enough. In an attempt to try and keep balance on this tightrope we have been remembering and revisiting some of last year’s #107days actions. The truly magical thing about #107days was the collective response and coming together, people adopting days and taking actions.

We know that we couldn’t come close to matching that again, which is why we’ve structured #107days Take 2 slightly differently. We also know that we are stronger together, and if we want to get the societal change that is needed to fully achieve JusticeforLB and all dudes, then we can make inroads with that, we don’t need to wait for ‘the system’ to progress it. So, this week, Week 3, is our first action week. We’re asking you all to take actions to make the world a better place for everyone. We’ve a couple of suggestions for you below and we’re open to your ideas; you could raise awareness, raise money, or just get on and change something and improve someone’s life (what a fantastic opportunity)!

Action 1: Tell someone about the #JusticeforLB campaign

We know we say this all the time, which is because we can’t say it often enough. We are an amazing collective of truly diverse and wonderful people pulling together for JusticeforLB and all the other dudes, but there is *always* room for more. More importantly if we truly wish to change society we need to bring more people with us – so tell someone about the campaign, write an email, send a postcard, have a conversation in the pub/coffee shop/doctors surgery/church/at a family gathering. Share this #107days blog, or Sara’s blog, or the campaign website, or the facebook page, or the twitter account – whatever works.

Action 2: Go see the Justice Quilt and tell someone about it

We are completely and utterly honoured that the amazing Justice Quilt is on display over the Easter holidays, and up until 22 April, at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. It seems only fair and fitting that LB’s story should reach so many more people, and should be witnessed in history, not hidden and silenced.

It goes without saying many of us can’t make it to Manchester, much as we would love to see the quilt in situ, so we are asking those of you who do to share a quilt selfie so we can all join in remotely – first to accept the challenge were Chris and Kat:

Keep them coming #JusticeforLB’ers

Action 3: Host a pop-up #JusticeforLB party

A week or so ago just before the start of #107days we were a little bit broken hearted in the Justice Shed by a couple of tweets that Deborah Price sent. The first of which was this one:

It turns out Deborah wasn’t alone and others found themselves in similar situations, where either parents aren’t confident/keen/bothered about including all children equally in their child’s parties, or children are picking and choosing and aren’t including all children equally. Who gets invited to a child’s birthday party is largely up to the hosts, we know that, but here in the Justice Shed we can’t bear to think of what it must feel like to be rejected from the fun. We think there should be a better way.

The thing about #JusticeforLB is that we can’t wait for other people to change things, to improve things, to fix things – we believe we have to be the change we want to see.

So, on May 23 2015 we are holding a pop-up party, family day gathering type thang at Lancaster University. It’s early days so we don’t have all the details yet, but we thought we’d share the idea more widely with you amazing JusticeforLB’ers and see what magic you could make happen. We are throwing open the challenge to you all to hold a #JusticeforLB pop-up party. It really doesn’t matter how many people attend, where you hold it, or what you do – so long as everyone is welcome.

If you let us have the details we will help advertise it, you could attach it onto an existing event, you could have a tea party with one or two other people, a large scale community event. We don’t mind and there is no need for it to be on the same date, we would love for 2015 to be the summer of pop-up parties, where everyone is welcome, young and old.

If you’d like to host a party please drop us a line and let us know so we can build up an idea of where and when they’re happening. If you’d like a co-host then let us know and we’ll try to find you someone.

Here in the Justice Shed we’re looking forward to a summer of fun so please don’t let us down!