Our Access to Work march on Saturday 26th September was wonderful, with 1,000 people marching from Parliament Square to Downing Street via the Department of Work and Pensions, with a clear message: STOP MAKING CHANGES TO ACCESS TO WORK.

After dropping off a copy of our petition (signed by 20,000 people at that point) at Downing Street, we held a rousing rally at Richmond Terrace, where emphasis was put on working together and paving the way for today’s deaf and disabled children’s futures.

Here are some photos from the day – each one is captioned – thanks to Paula Peters and others:

#LetUsWork banner: getting ready to march…

Marchers lining up outside Parliament.

Stop the Cuts banner (with Claire Hill, our fab stenographer)!

Some of our lovely stewards getting everyone to line up, ready to march…

…And we were off!  Marching around Parliament Square:

Outside the DWP (to chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!”):

Marching down Whitehall with a rather magnificent BSL banner…

Arriving for the rally…

Stop Changes to AtW members handing over our petition at 10 Downing Street!

Rally: Our MC, John Walker, introducing Sean McGovern (TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee Co-Chair/Unite the Union)

Some of our interpreters and stenographer in full flow!

Jane Aitchinson (Unite the Resistance)

Jeff McWhinney addressing the crowd!

Tracey Lazard (Inclusion London)

Dawn Marshall (Becoming Visible)

Ray Johnson (People First)

Jen Smith (NUBSLI)

Jane Cordell (Result CIC)

Roger Lewis (DPAC)

Jenny Sealey (Stop Changes)

Ellen Clifford (Stop Changes)

… and the amazing crowd!

We wholeheartedly thank everyone who came and made the day such a success.

More soon about our brilliant, 1,000-strong, march on Saturday!

For now, here are some links (if you know of more, please tell us!):

Today’s Limping Chicken: http://limpingchicken.com/2015/09/28/jen-dodds-my-3-favourite-photos-from-the-access-to-work-march-bsl/

Friday’s Disability News Service: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/marchers-to-warn-pm-that-access-to-work-cap-will-discriminate/

Photos on Demotix by Peter Marshall: http://www.demotix.com/news/8659800/deaf-and-disabled-march-retain-their-access-work#media-8659780

Photos on Demotix by Philip Robins: http://www.demotix.com/news/8656063/deaf-and-disabled-london-protest-access-work-funding-cuts#media-8655746

Finnish Deaf news! http://areena.yle.fi/1-3049395 (English translation below)

 Yesterday, 26 September in London deaf people gathered to protest because the government planned cuts in working interpretation fundings. If the work interpretation is reduced, the deaf are afraid that the work interpretation shall be reduced, this will lead to the loss of existing jobs and have trouble finding work. The British Deaf community also collected more than 18 thousand names changes to oppose the changes.

Update about the AtW march, and how you can support us from home!
Are you ready to march for access to work on Saturday 26th September? Are you ready to tell the government to stop the changes?!

There are things you can do to support our campaign, whether you can make it to the march or not…

Don’t forget your placard!

We have some banners and placards to share with everyone, but if you want to bring your own, the more the merrier!

Your placard could say STOP CHANGES TO ACCESS TO WORK or STOP THE CUTS … or whatever you like!

Sign our petition!

If you haven’t signed our petition, please do! It’s here – https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-changes-to-access-to-work – and we’re trying to get 20,000 signatures by Saturday, so please ask everyone you know to sign it too!

Tweet!

Our official hashtag is #stopchanges2atw so please use that when you tweet about the march, or about access to work! (We’re on Twitter as @stopchanges2atw)

Film crews…

If you’re coming on the march, please be aware that there will be at least 3 film crews there:

• Our own crew, provided by the lovely Ted Evans, so that we can have a record of the day.

• See Hear! Yay!

• Unfortunately, a crew from a programme called “Britain on the Fiddle” is coming. We’ve told them they are not welcome – it’s about benefit fraud, and is nothing to do with AtW. We can’t stop them, though. So, if someone wants to interview you, please be aware that you should check where they’re from. We don’t support this programme, but it’s your choice!

Finally… Our amazing speakers (and MC)!

We’re thrilled that John Walker has agreed to be MC for the rally after the march! We’re equally thrilled with our line-up of fantastic speakers (in BSL and English, with STTR captions):

Jenny Sealey (Stop Changes to AtW), Jane Aitchinson ( Unite the Resistance), Jeff McWhinney (former MD of Significan’t), Sean McGovern (TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee Co-Chair/Unite the Union), Tracey Lazard (Inclusion London), Dawn Marshall (Director, Becoming Visible), Ray Johnson (People First), Jen Smith (NUBSLI), Jane Cordell (Director, Result CIC), Roger Lewis (DPAC).

It’s going to be brilliant! See you there!

Meet at 12 noon at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3JY:

Click here to see Welfare Weekly’s Disabled To March On Downing Street Over ‘Access To Work’ Changes article (7th September 2015).

You may have seen our amazing flyer, created by the wonderful David Ziggy Greene who is Private Eye’s resident cartoonist. Please feel free to circulate this. 

Our “March with us” page has a poster version for you to download and print and another smaller version for use on the web.