News / Brandon Trust
Celebrating our differences in Bristol
People from across Bristol can come together as a community, meet old and new friends and have some fun during Brandon Trust‘s day of celebration.
The accessible event, held at the Trinity Centre on Friday, from 11am to 4pm is designed to showcase talents and achievements of people with learning disabilities, as well as challenge discrimination and stigma that still exists in society as a whole.
There will be opportunities to learn new skills from a variety of fun and creative workshops and to watch a variety of performances by people with learning difficulties, including music and dramatic pieces. There will also be a raffle and cake.
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Brandon Trust has even created an original performance for the event, a spoof chat show called ‘The Molly Filloughby Show’ wherein the eponymous host interviews actors, who are delivering disability hate crime training in Bristol.
The show is designed to raise awareness of the importance of this kind of training and to help educate people on the subject, and will be on at 11.30am.
Last year’s Celebration Day was such a hit that Brandon trust have decided to upgrade the event
Brandon Trust’s Sarah Howard is one of the lead organisers. She works in disability hate crime reporting and training and employs assistant trainers, who have learning disabilities to develop and deliver accessible training workshops.
She says that the involvement of people with learning difficulties in such workshops is hugely important, as their input helps the charity to continually improve such events.
After the success of last year’s event, organised by the NHS, the Brandon Trust has extended the partnership to include several other organisations that work with people with learning disabilities, including Bristol Community Health and Headlight.
The event aims to provide a safe space where being a person with learning disability can be seen in a positive light, celebrating who everyone is with all their differences. A variety of organisations who work with people with learning difficulties have been invited to publicise their work and bring along the people they support.
There will also be a short video during the day which also aims to help educate people on disability hate crime and how to prevent it.
(Left to right) Katy Tovey, Jemma Ballinger and Daniel Bryan are all trainers who work with Brandon Trust, using drama to combat hate crime
Such events are a crucial part in not only combating what continues to be a widespread and distressing issue, but also in allowing victims to speak up and have a platform to talk about their experiences.
Brandon Trust is part of Bristol Hate Crime and Discrimination services, a group of organisations which cooperate to combat hate crime and to eradicate it through better education on the subjects surrounding it.
Entry to the event is free and lunch bags cost £2.50.
Read more: Accessing the arts
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