I’m ten years old and I’m walking to the
doctor surgery with my mum and my little
sister we just moved there to this
predominantly white village in
Derbyshire and we walk into the surgery
and we go to the reception and my mum
asks the receptionist
can I get my daughters registered the
receptionist frowns at her and asks her
to repeat herself so she says again can
I get my daughters registered and then
again the receptionist asked her to
repeat herself and then again and again
like that until she finally says to my
mum can’t you speak in English thing is
mum was speaking in English the best
that she could English isn’t her first
language she grew up speaking Swahili in
Gujarati she was born in Uganda when mum
was a kids in Uganda Idi Amin took power
what followed were human rights abuses
political corruption and oppression in
1971 he declared what he called an
economic war including a set of policies
designed to take away the the land and
the property of the Asians and the
Europeans living in the country Uganda’s
80,000 Asians had moved there when the
place was a British colony now they were
given 90 days to leave my mum’s family
had to leave everything behind their
business home mum school her friends
drop everything can just walk away
years later my mum and dad got married
and came to the UK now the UK was a
hostile place for people coming into the
country but what’s important to remember
is that after the Second World War
the UK government had invited
Commonwealth citizens to come to the
country
and to fill in labor skills like the NHS
public transport so naturally they
thought that they’d be welcome but they
got a lot of surprises when they arrived
the cold for one there were these
amazing photos of that generation coming
off the plains with their beautiful
saris billowing in the wind absolutely
freezing they just didn’t know how cold
it gets in England but the reception was
even colder you see the truth was that
these people had been exiled from their
countries and it linked back to the
British Empire but the propaganda was
that they were flooding the country and
taking over my dad with a science degree
could only get factory work so the two
of them worked their socks off until
they had enough to buy a shop and so
there we are in this village where
people had barely seen the color of
brown skin and there we are in the
doctor’s surgery and my mum was
voiceless because the receptionist has
taken her voice away from her by
refusing to listen and so we turn around
and go back home and tell my dad that we
couldn’t get registered now that’s not
one of the worst things that happened in
those years but for some reason that
experience really stayed with me that
day we were told that our difference was
our weakness and I carried on hearing
that echoed to me as I grew up every
time I came across somebody who didn’t
fit what society deems as normal I was
reminded of it last year with Belinda
Belinda’s mum mary has a 45-degree curve
in her spine and severe joint facet
deterioration it means she uses the
wheelchair now last year
Mary went to visit Belinda as she was
finishing her first year of university
in London and what was supposed to be a
lovely weekend for the family turned
into a humiliating ordeal the apps they
were using to get
the city didn’t take them on wheelchair
friendly routes see while Google Maps
was able to identify the wheelchair
accessible stations once they left the
station they were on their own
can you imagine trekking around a big
city like London going 40 minutes to get
to one destination only need to be faced
with a footbridge I have to go all the
way back again hours wasted like that
it was time-consuming and degrading for
Belinda and her mum Belinda was furious
she got home but instead of accepting
that this was their weakness instead of
letting get make her voiceless
she made her voice louder she started a
petition calling on Google Maps to make
that app fully accessible and that’s
when I came across a story see every day
I see people like Belinda starting
petitions and rejecting the idea that
they’re weak rejecting the notion that
their difference makes them wrong
because Society has told them that
they’re in the minority months later
Belinda got a phone call from Google
they invited her in for a meeting that
could have been really scary you know
Belinda finishing her first year at
University invited in to meet these
Google execs but Belinda felt powerful
because three hundred thousand and
fourteen people had signed her petition
and so she walked into that meeting with
three hundred thousand and fourteen
people behind her now maybe they were
gonna flatter her make sure that she
would go away but Belinda had other
ideas
what happened after that meeting was a
continued conversation back and forth
between Belinda and Google and then
something amazing happened last month
Google got in touch and told her that
they’d be making their app accessible
starting with some of the bigger cities
Tokyo Paris New York and London so now
on your way home you can get a fully
accessible wheelchair friendly route
home
now things have changed a lot since I
was younger unlike me Belinda could go
home open her laptop and transfer her
frustration into this petition because
the Internet has leveled out the playing
field for anyone who feels that they’re
different it’s made it so much more
effective to have your voice heard and
it’s made it’s so much more accessible
and it’s opened up a whole world of
campaigning to people who never thought
of themselves as campaigners people like
Luke
so that’s Luke on the left and there he
is with his best mate Brian Luke grew up
in Wolverhampton Brian was abandoned in
Zimbabwe until he was six until a
British family came across him by the
time he was 15 he was adopted and living
in the UK but it wasn’t until he was
making his university application that
he found out that there was a home
office era when he’d moved here and that
he had the incorrect status now Luke had
seen Brian work his socks off to get a
three a stars and one aid to get into
Oxford University for someone in Brian’s
shoes so hard to speak up and for
someone like Luke who would listen to
some kid in Wolverhampton especially not
the home office but knowing that his
friend could use everything and that he
could lose his friend Luke couldn’t
require so he starts to campaign to get
the Home Office to urgently review
Brian’s status in just one week over a
hundred thousand people signed that
petition the story was covered in
practically every media outlet
politicians from across the political
spectrum were speaking up on behalf of
Brian even the police and crime
Commissioner of the area tweeted at the
Home Office urging them to review Brian
status now before all of this happened
Luke said he thought the campaign is for
people who hug
trees but by speaking up he proved to
everyone including himself that he
couldn’t be ignored one week later the
Home Office had reviewed their decision
and given Brian his correct status and
he’s now studying chemistry at Oxford
University
so there’s Belinda Brian and Luke when
you start to look around you you realize
that the real heroes in society are the
this is farmer farmer grew up in the
British smiley community in Bristol in
that community is at risk of female
genital mutilation every year 24,000
girls are at risk in this country some
at risk at home some at risk of being
sent away some as young as five the
summer is known as the cutting season
when girls can be sent away for the
procedure so that they can be returned
back for school to start in September a
farmer cared passionately about this and
about the fact that this was happening
in her community and she wanted it to
stop but the community farmers from has
long been ignored in this country but
she wanted to speak up
and the thing is farmer had the power of
the Internet at her fingertips so she
started a petition calling on the
government to address female genital
mutilation by writing to all schools she
wanted teachers to know what the warning
signs were so that girls could be
stopped from being sent away farm or 17
at the time someone like farmer isn’t
supposed to come head to head with the
Secretary of State for education but
that’s exactly what happens
her petition grew and grew and it threw
open the government doors she got
invited for a meeting with the Secretary
of State when she walked into that
meeting
was one expert in the room and it was
farmer nobody else there knew the
realities of female genital mutilation
no one else there had the passion and
the power that farmer held she asked the
Secretary of State will you write to all
schools he avoided the question got to
the end of the meeting but farmer
refused to let him leave she refused to
let the Secretary’s day leave the room
for his next meeting and she kept on
asking him and so what could he do he
had to agree farmer said afterwards
before all of this I was always the one
in the background I never knew how much
power I hold the thing is is our
experiences that is the power is your
superpower we just don’t know it because
society has a really limited idea of
what strength is we’re told that power
is to be a wealthy white man but what if
we disrupt that idea and step into our
weakness I apologize if you’re a wealthy
white man in this room many many years
after I was in that doctor surgery the
world has transformed the Internet has
given us the access to tools to amplify
our voices access social media and
information on an incredible scale now
I’m a writer and a campaigner and I use
my voice to amplify the voices of people
like farmer and Luke and Brian and
Belinda you see if it wasn’t for Belinda
and Mary one of the biggest tech
companies in the world wouldn’t have
made a vital change to their product if
it wasn’t for Luke the accidental
campaigner his friend Brian wouldn’t be
at Oxford University right now he might
not even be in the country if it wasn’t
for farmer speaking up about what was
happening in her community the
government wouldn’t have taken such a
radical step in a
education and if it wasn’t that day in
that surgery I don’t think I’d be
telling you this story here today and
think is me Belinda Luke Bryan farmer
were not the exception everybody here in
this room has been told or made to feel
at some point that you’re different but
this idea of the norm this wealthy white
man whose shadow were all in he’s the
minority so we’ve got this amazing
opportunity with the Internet at our
fingertips will we use our experiences
our differences our weakness to make us
voiceless or we let it become our megaphone thank you
doctor surgery with my mum and my little
sister we just moved there to this
predominantly white village in
Derbyshire and we walk into the surgery
and we go to the reception and my mum
asks the receptionist
can I get my daughters registered the
receptionist frowns at her and asks her
to repeat herself so she says again can
I get my daughters registered and then
again the receptionist asked her to
repeat herself and then again and again
like that until she finally says to my
mum can’t you speak in English thing is
mum was speaking in English the best
that she could English isn’t her first
language she grew up speaking Swahili in
Gujarati she was born in Uganda when mum
was a kids in Uganda Idi Amin took power
what followed were human rights abuses
political corruption and oppression in
1971 he declared what he called an
economic war including a set of policies
designed to take away the the land and
the property of the Asians and the
Europeans living in the country Uganda’s
80,000 Asians had moved there when the
place was a British colony now they were
given 90 days to leave my mum’s family
had to leave everything behind their
business home mum school her friends
drop everything can just walk away
years later my mum and dad got married
and came to the UK now the UK was a
hostile place for people coming into the
country but what’s important to remember
is that after the Second World War
the UK government had invited
Commonwealth citizens to come to the
country
and to fill in labor skills like the NHS
public transport so naturally they
thought that they’d be welcome but they
got a lot of surprises when they arrived
the cold for one there were these
amazing photos of that generation coming
off the plains with their beautiful
saris billowing in the wind absolutely
freezing they just didn’t know how cold
it gets in England but the reception was
even colder you see the truth was that
these people had been exiled from their
countries and it linked back to the
British Empire but the propaganda was
that they were flooding the country and
taking over my dad with a science degree
could only get factory work so the two
of them worked their socks off until
they had enough to buy a shop and so
there we are in this village where
people had barely seen the color of
brown skin and there we are in the
doctor’s surgery and my mum was
voiceless because the receptionist has
taken her voice away from her by
refusing to listen and so we turn around
and go back home and tell my dad that we
couldn’t get registered now that’s not
one of the worst things that happened in
those years but for some reason that
experience really stayed with me that
day we were told that our difference was
our weakness and I carried on hearing
that echoed to me as I grew up every
time I came across somebody who didn’t
fit what society deems as normal I was
reminded of it last year with Belinda
Belinda’s mum mary has a 45-degree curve
in her spine and severe joint facet
deterioration it means she uses the
wheelchair now last year
Mary went to visit Belinda as she was
finishing her first year of university
in London and what was supposed to be a
lovely weekend for the family turned
into a humiliating ordeal the apps they
were using to get
the city didn’t take them on wheelchair
friendly routes see while Google Maps
was able to identify the wheelchair
accessible stations once they left the
station they were on their own
can you imagine trekking around a big
city like London going 40 minutes to get
to one destination only need to be faced
with a footbridge I have to go all the
way back again hours wasted like that
it was time-consuming and degrading for
Belinda and her mum Belinda was furious
she got home but instead of accepting
that this was their weakness instead of
letting get make her voiceless
she made her voice louder she started a
petition calling on Google Maps to make
that app fully accessible and that’s
when I came across a story see every day
I see people like Belinda starting
petitions and rejecting the idea that
they’re weak rejecting the notion that
their difference makes them wrong
because Society has told them that
they’re in the minority months later
Belinda got a phone call from Google
they invited her in for a meeting that
could have been really scary you know
Belinda finishing her first year at
University invited in to meet these
Google execs but Belinda felt powerful
because three hundred thousand and
fourteen people had signed her petition
and so she walked into that meeting with
three hundred thousand and fourteen
people behind her now maybe they were
gonna flatter her make sure that she
would go away but Belinda had other
ideas
what happened after that meeting was a
continued conversation back and forth
between Belinda and Google and then
something amazing happened last month
Google got in touch and told her that
they’d be making their app accessible
starting with some of the bigger cities
Tokyo Paris New York and London so now
on your way home you can get a fully
accessible wheelchair friendly route
home
now things have changed a lot since I
was younger unlike me Belinda could go
home open her laptop and transfer her
frustration into this petition because
the Internet has leveled out the playing
field for anyone who feels that they’re
different it’s made it so much more
effective to have your voice heard and
it’s made it’s so much more accessible
and it’s opened up a whole world of
campaigning to people who never thought
of themselves as campaigners people like
Luke
so that’s Luke on the left and there he
is with his best mate Brian Luke grew up
in Wolverhampton Brian was abandoned in
Zimbabwe until he was six until a
British family came across him by the
time he was 15 he was adopted and living
in the UK but it wasn’t until he was
making his university application that
he found out that there was a home
office era when he’d moved here and that
he had the incorrect status now Luke had
seen Brian work his socks off to get a
three a stars and one aid to get into
Oxford University for someone in Brian’s
shoes so hard to speak up and for
someone like Luke who would listen to
some kid in Wolverhampton especially not
the home office but knowing that his
friend could use everything and that he
could lose his friend Luke couldn’t
require so he starts to campaign to get
the Home Office to urgently review
Brian’s status in just one week over a
hundred thousand people signed that
petition the story was covered in
practically every media outlet
politicians from across the political
spectrum were speaking up on behalf of
Brian even the police and crime
Commissioner of the area tweeted at the
Home Office urging them to review Brian
status now before all of this happened
Luke said he thought the campaign is for
people who hug
trees but by speaking up he proved to
everyone including himself that he
couldn’t be ignored one week later the
Home Office had reviewed their decision
and given Brian his correct status and
he’s now studying chemistry at Oxford
University
so there’s Belinda Brian and Luke when
you start to look around you you realize
that the real heroes in society are the
this is farmer farmer grew up in the
British smiley community in Bristol in
that community is at risk of female
genital mutilation every year 24,000
girls are at risk in this country some
at risk at home some at risk of being
sent away some as young as five the
summer is known as the cutting season
when girls can be sent away for the
procedure so that they can be returned
back for school to start in September a
farmer cared passionately about this and
about the fact that this was happening
in her community and she wanted it to
stop but the community farmers from has
long been ignored in this country but
she wanted to speak up
and the thing is farmer had the power of
the Internet at her fingertips so she
started a petition calling on the
government to address female genital
mutilation by writing to all schools she
wanted teachers to know what the warning
signs were so that girls could be
stopped from being sent away farm or 17
at the time someone like farmer isn’t
supposed to come head to head with the
Secretary of State for education but
that’s exactly what happens
her petition grew and grew and it threw
open the government doors she got
invited for a meeting with the Secretary
of State when she walked into that
meeting
was one expert in the room and it was
farmer nobody else there knew the
realities of female genital mutilation
no one else there had the passion and
the power that farmer held she asked the
Secretary of State will you write to all
schools he avoided the question got to
the end of the meeting but farmer
refused to let him leave she refused to
let the Secretary’s day leave the room
for his next meeting and she kept on
asking him and so what could he do he
had to agree farmer said afterwards
before all of this I was always the one
in the background I never knew how much
power I hold the thing is is our
experiences that is the power is your
superpower we just don’t know it because
society has a really limited idea of
what strength is we’re told that power
is to be a wealthy white man but what if
we disrupt that idea and step into our
weakness I apologize if you’re a wealthy
white man in this room many many years
after I was in that doctor surgery the
world has transformed the Internet has
given us the access to tools to amplify
our voices access social media and
information on an incredible scale now
I’m a writer and a campaigner and I use
my voice to amplify the voices of people
like farmer and Luke and Brian and
Belinda you see if it wasn’t for Belinda
and Mary one of the biggest tech
companies in the world wouldn’t have
made a vital change to their product if
it wasn’t for Luke the accidental
campaigner his friend Brian wouldn’t be
at Oxford University right now he might
not even be in the country if it wasn’t
for farmer speaking up about what was
happening in her community the
government wouldn’t have taken such a
radical step in a
education and if it wasn’t that day in
that surgery I don’t think I’d be
telling you this story here today and
think is me Belinda Luke Bryan farmer
were not the exception everybody here in
this room has been told or made to feel
at some point that you’re different but
this idea of the norm this wealthy white
man whose shadow were all in he’s the
minority so we’ve got this amazing
opportunity with the Internet at our
fingertips will we use our experiences
our differences our weakness to make us
voiceless or we let it become our megaphone thank you
Please follow and like us: