The Disablement Income Group (DIG) was a British

disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, dev ...

pressure group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the develop ...

formed in 1965 in

Godalming Godalming is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settleme ...

, Surrey. It is considered to be one of the first pan-impairment pressure groups in Britain, and was created to campaign for the introduction of a full disability income through the

social security system Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

for all disabled people. According to the

Charity Commission , type = Non-ministerial government department , seal = , seal_caption = , logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , ...

, The Disablement Income Group had ceased to exist as a

charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...

by 2 April 2003.

History

DIG was founded in 1965 by two "housewives" as known at the time, when Megan du Boisson and Berit Moore wrote a letter to ''The Guardian'' newspaper on 22 March 1965.

Margaret Blackwood Dame Margaret Blackwood (26 April 1909 – 1 June 1986) was an Australian botanist and geneticist. She attended the University of Melbourne and lectured there for the majority of her career, becoming deputy chancellor after her academic retirem ...

formed a similar group in Scotland in 1966. At the time, social security payments to disabled people depended on the previous cause of impairment. People injured in war or in the workplace were entitled to significantly more support than the "civilian" disabled. DIG's campaigns brought the poverty of disabled people, and especially disabled women, to the attention of the general public. This campaign and other events such as the

thalidomide Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is a medication used to treat a number of cancers (including multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications of ...

scandal led to the creation of a series of new social security benefits in the 1970s. These included benefits for women who had not been in paid work and other carers who had previously been excluded from benefit. In 1988 DIG was appointed by government to help administer the Independent Living Fund. DIG is significant as it was formed by disabled people, and key leaders such as Du Boisson, Mary Greaves and Peter Large were themselves disabled. For this reason, many consider DIG to represent one of the key organisations in the beginnings of the modern disability movement in the United Kingdom.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Catalogue of the DIG archives
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

Disability rights organizations Disability organisations based in the United Kingdom