OneConversation: grassroots activism around the stigma and discrimination people with learning disabled and autistic face.
The history bit.
We started getting dissatisfied in 2017 when we came together to think of a way of making sure learning disabled and autistic voices are heard.
So, we organised ‘OneWalk’ - a march that would see people with learning disabled and autistic people march through Mansfield town centre with banners that told the town about this - 400 people came.
We did it again the year after when 600+ marched, and again in 2019 when over 900 people marched.
However, we recognised that this only brought about change for one day a year, maybe a week at the most. We knew we needed to do more.
New ideas.
We knew we didn’t want to rely on someone else, so we had to find our own power, our own authority. This was an easier task than we thought after someone asked us when we experience the greatest connection with people?
“When we chat with them”
Light bulb moment… we win people over with our chat and our charm, we would change minds OneConversation at a time. It became clear that sitting face to face with people was when proper change occurred, we knew that at that moment people actually see us.
But since nobody was approaching us, we decided to take it to them.
Getting Started.
We started carving out ways to have conversations with people who wouldn’t usually come in to contact with people with disabilities. This had to be fun, interesting and challenging, absolutely not what they (and their unconscious bias) were expecting. We began giving people licence to ask us anything and absolute permission to be curious. Our conversations ranged from social care to sex lives.
Small groups of us chatting with small groups of them… genius! We started taking our conversations to schools, colleges, universities, football clubs, businesses and had a monthly residency in Capo Lounge where we host ‘Tapas & Talk’, quite frankly our favourite cos we get to talk and drink beer!
Coping with 2020.
Okay, so 2020 was not been what we thought it would be, but we developed a digital schools pack which is landed really well, we are having Zoom chats with people outside of our usual geographical reach and we became a charity… so not all bad.
We also realised how unsatisfied we were with the way we were still treated and used the time to hatch some cunning plans, one of which was OneFest, where will really started to shake things up.
See more about OneFest at www.onefest.uk
Getting Serious.
In 2023, OneConversation gotten taken in under the umbrella of Unanima - a badass learning disabled artist development organisation that achieved National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status with Arts Council England. This allowed us to really ramp up what we are doing, contributing to academic research and literature, speaking at conferences, and consolidating our campaigning, as well as becoming an established provider of the Oliver McGowan Training with the NHS.
Stepping into the Future.
As we stride into 2026, we are planning to make even more of an impact. We are focussing our energy on three things that we are a basic human right, but consistently denied of learning disabled and autistic people:
MEANING
PURPOSE
SOCIAL CONNECTION
Having these things are essential for ensuring has the best quality of life possible, and fighting to ensure they are really there is always transformative for learning disabled people. It is NOT OKAY for anyone to live without access to these things.