Local Disabled People Star in New Ad Campaign to Challenge our Creature Discomforts

Three local disabled people feature in a new campaign to challenge and change attitudes towards disability, launched in Wales by Leonard Cheshire Disability this week.

The charity has teamed up with Aardman Animations to create a highly original campaign called Creature Discomforts. The awareness campaign is based on the much-loved Creature Comforts series and features the hallmark plasticine characters with disabilities.

The characters will appear in adverts at bus stops and shopping centres across Cardiff, as well as in newspapers, magazines and online from Thursday.

The Aardman Animations team has created new characters for Leonard Cheshire Disability’s campaign that include a bull terrier in a wheelchair, a stick insect with a walking stick and a tortoise on crutches.

The four animations are based on the genuine voices of disabled people describing in their own words the negative attitudes and barriers they experience, which separate them from society. Each animation ends with the message “change the way you see disability”.

The campaign coincides with the publication of the Disability Review 2007 – the first annual in-depth examination of life for disabled people in the UK today.

The Disability Review 2007, commissioned by Leonard Cheshire Disability, reveals that almost half (45 per cent) of disabled people in Wales who responded to the national survey believe their quality of life will get worse over the next five years.

The report also found that a fifth (20 per cent) of respondents in Wales felt the quality of treatment they received from GPs was not up to scratch. Eight per cent had been a victim of crime over the last 12 months. And 84 per cent of Welsh respondents voted in the last General Election – compared to 61 per cent of the UK population.

Sheila Morgan from Cardiff, who stars as Peg the Hedgehog, said: “Disabled people don’t want your pity, we just want your respect.”

Vanessa Bourne, Wales and West Regional Chairman at Leonard Cheshire Disability said: “We want people to change the way they see disability, to think and act differently and to make a positive difference to the lives of disabled people.

“Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance. In the twenty-first century it is unacceptable that such negative attitudes to disability still persist. Everyone has a part to play in creating a world in which disabled people are included in every aspect of life.”

For a preview of the campaign visit www.creaturediscomforts.org. From Thursday the characters will appear in adverts at bus stops, in newspapers, magazines and online. In January, the animations will be aired on ITV.