Business woman Ann Johnson has embarked on a mission to create a
fresh, new and exciting social marketing company in Shropshire. The
Wave-length enterprise will endeavour to tune people in to a new
way of thinking.
This passion has grown ever since Ann was told nine years ago
that she would never walk again. While best efforts were to get
herself onto her feet, she also wanted to show people she could
still be successful in business.
She said: "Being a wheelchair user has certainly changed the way
I perceive society and the way it perceives me. I have had
difficulty in running my own business and have been at the
receiving end of some negative attitudes to disability."
This is what has made the remarkable woman's thirst to change
the way in which people view disability so strong. Wave-length's
quest is to show that a disability does not define a
person.
The new social marketing company will encourage employers to
look past an individual's impairment and recognise them for their
talents. This will be done through innovative, informative and
widely accessible campaigns, events and social mediums.
Ann said: "I have often felt that the social model of disability
is often seen to be an Act or a Law that needs to be applied, but
it is people that change society, not pieces of paper."
This drive of Ann's has been strengthened due to particular
findings. Realising that people with learning difficulties found it
hard to get bank accounts; that often training courses were not
appropriate for certain impairments; and that even employers found
it hard to find sources of support when it came to reasonable
adjustments and grants, just showed that change needed to be
made.
Rong Radio station, a poem by Benjamin Zephaniah, was a big
influence for Ann to take this step. She explained that the poem
showed her that sometimes society and culture's perception of an
individual can have a huge, and sometimes negative influence on the
way in which they view themselves.
Wave-length will strive to be an enterprise that people will
want to be involved in, it will do its best to change people's
perception of disability from a very young age; it will encourage
people to ask questions and not to fear difference; it's vision: to
disable disability.