The Festival of Opportunities for Disabled People Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 11th May 2005 10.00 - 16.00

Ability Fest is run annually as a FREE and unique opportunity for disabled people, families & carers and service organisations to find out about opportunities for learning, employment and leisure activities in the West of Scotland.

At this year's event on 11th May, we operated a free ticket system which allowed us, for the first time, to track the number of people participating in Ability Fest, as exhibitors, workshop leaders, perfomers and visitors. We are glad to report that we met our target of 750 participants.
External evaluators were present on the day and their report is now available for download here:

Please contact us if you require it in Braille or on audiotape.

In addition to the exhibition we ran an interesting programme of interactive workshops, taster sessions, performance and discussion.

Programme

Workshops
Strathclyde Hall and Bars 10.00 - 12.30

Open Information Sessions

Focus on Leisure 10.00 - 10.30

• The Extra Challenge
• Caledonian Award (tbc)
• PAMIS

Focus on Learning 10.45 - 11.15

• Scottish Wider Access Programme
• Individual Learning Accounts
• Glasgow ALN Partnership

Focus on Employment 11.30 - 12.30

• Access to Work. How to make it work for you. Iansyst Ltd
• Disability related benefits and better-off at work calculations. Financial Fitness

Bookable Workshops

• Art Workshop 10.30 and 11.30
  Make a stained glass-effect Wall Hanging (Art Trek)
• Disclosure 10.15 and 11.00
  Small group discussion on the pros and cons; whys and hows of disclosing an impairment. (Scottish Employment Opportunities)
• Snakes n Ladders 11.30
  An interactive game, with a serious purpose, on the highs and lows of finding a job. (Careers Scotland and Shaw Trust)
• Voice Recognition Software 10.15 and 10.50
  Demonstration on how to train a computer to recognise your voice. (Iansyst Ltd)
• TextHelp Read & Write Gold 10.15 and 10.50
  Find out how to use software designed to help people with a wide variety of learning difficulties. (Concept Northern)

Performance
Strathclyde Hall 13.00 - 14.15

• Chill-out Music - keyboard and singing (Abercorn School Musicians & Blues Band)
• "Inside I'm Screaming: travels with a wheelchair" (PC Puppets)
• The Clown Factory - songs and sketches with a mental health focus (Theatre Nemo)

Panel Discussion
Strathclyde Hall 14.30 - 15.45

The Disability Discrimination Act revisited: what difference has 10 years of the DDA made to disabled peoples access to learning, employment and leisure opportunities?

Put your questions to representatives from: Inclusion Scotland; Skill Scotland and others.

Prize Draw
Strathclyde Hall 15.50 - 16.00

• MP3 Player (Donated by Assist-IT)
• Computer Course (Donated by Assist-IT)
• Fruit Basket (Donated by Whitehaugh Centre, Capability Scotland)
• Organic Garden Compost (Donated by Silver Birch)
• Bird Table (donated by Shaw Trust)

and many more.

Free entry to Prize Draw is by completing an official Ability Fest ticket.

These will be available at the door or in advance from:
Jean Alcock, Secretary Tel: 0141 649 1521

It is recommended that groups from schools, colleges and resource centres etc. request tickets in advance to ensure that all members get the opportunity to enter the Prize Draw and to save time at the door.

Ability Fest 2005
Supported by

with further donations from

This page was updated on 12 December 2006