Disability Action, as it is currently constituted, is the result of a regular
refocusing of its mission, systems and structures since the early 1960’s.
At that time, the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service, now (N.I.C.V.A)
Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action supported 3 standing committees,
which grew throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s to become the independent bodies,
Age Concern Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Association of Citizens
Advice Bureau and Disability Action.
Disability Action began life in the late 1950’s as the Belfast Committee for
the Handicapped and over the next three decades became the Northern Ireland
Committee for the Handicapped (N.I.C.H), the Northern Ireland Council for the
Handicapped, the Northern Ireland Council on Disability and finally in 1992
Disability Action.
In its earliest form, the N.I.C.H was serviced by a part time secretary who was
a member of N.I.C.S.S staff. The key elements that stimulated its growth were
the United Kingdom’s Silver Jubilee Committee on Improving Access to the Built
Environment in 1978 and the International Year of Disabled People in 1981.
As part of the former, N.I.C.H, then comprising a Council of approximately 25
disability organisations (mostly concerned with physical disability), undertook
an access survey of Northern Ireland producing 6 county guides for use by
disabled people and their families and friends. The member organisations became
involved as volunteer surveyors and report writers and so a great energy was
created around N.I.C.H.
The latter, the International Year of Disabled People, built on this energy to
create information services, activities and additional resources which were the
platform on which the Disability Action of today is based.
As a result of the Silver Jubilee work, the part time worker was made full time
and became in effect the Director. Funding was made available in 1980 to create
Northern Ireland’s first Information Service for disabled people, and in 1981
an International Year of Disabled People/Access Development Officer was
appointed, a five-fold increase in staffing.
The results of this resourcing were obvious; in 1982 N.I.C.H started the first
Group Transport Service for Disabled People, 20 Local Access Groups were
established and the promotional events surrounding the International Year of
Disabled People were creating a range of new disability organisations, a few of
them ‘of’ disabled people rather than ‘for’ disabled people.
By 1985/6 N.I.C.S.S had undergone a major review which was to refocus it as
N.I.C.V.A and as part of these recommendations N.I.C.H, the last standing
committee, moved to independence becoming the Northern Ireland Council on
Disability (N.I.C.D) in 1987. The change of language used in our name changes
is a powerful indicator of the development of the politics of disability and of
the recognition of the need for N.I.C.D to lead the demand for social inclusion
rather than charity.
At the same time N.I.C.D was developing services in the fields of access,
information, community development, mobility, transport, employment and
vocational training to fill gaps in provision, focusing on the key areas of
discrimination identified by the organisation at the time.
The natural progression was work undertaken between 1989 – 1991, which led to
the renaming of N.I.C.D as Disability Action and the publishing of an
underpinning Charter of Rights in 1992.
back