Examples of Occupations That Make up My Disabled Activism

In my last blog I explored my activism as a meaningful occupation and how this occupation has grown over the years from what was blogging to now being so much more. Therefore, in this blog I thought I’d break down my activism a little more and show you what I’ve been up to this year.

Every year I find that I get busier and busier with my activism and end up doing events and taking on roles that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing the year before. 

CP Teens UK:

If you’ve followed my blog a while now, you’ll know that in 2019 I became an ambassador for CP Teens UK and do a lot of work with the charity. As of this year I have been promoted to a Head Ambassador in which I have done many social events with the charity. I normally attend a few events each year such as the Sponsored Wobble and of course I cannot miss the annual ball but this year I have done many events with the charity and have loved each one!

When I got promoted to head ambassador I was very mindful that as much as I wanted to commit I didn’t want to make empty promises. For example, I haven’t managed to do an ambassadors diary post for a while due to other roles. But Ellie, the charity’s founder is very understanding of this and NEVER asks too much of me and I fully appreciate this. I am so lucky that I get to work so closely with this charity. 

Freelancing/Volunteering:

Freelancing and volunteering work seems to have gone through the roof recently, I tend to have months where it is quiet and then others when everything comes at once and right now we are in the thick of it. Which has been amazing and has kept me occupied during my short break from work. It still blows me away that 18-month ago I was sat as a student in lecturers and now I’m guest lecturing! How did that happen? If only I could tell that girl in 2020/2021 that was so worried about finding a job to chill out because some of the opportunities I’ve had so far have been fantastic!!

I still have to find the balance though and there are things that I have had to prioritise this year such as my job at the University of Huddersfield and the book (sorry I mentioned it, again). Therefore, I have to be mindful about what I do with my energy levels. Margaret and I have had to have numerous conversations about this in supervision but I’m happy with what I’ve done this year. Yet, I must say this short break from work has been great in that sense as I had scaled the freelancing and volunteering back so being able to poke my fingers in a few pies again has been great! I love variety and doing different events is super fun, not to mention how much more accessible it is being able to dial in and give hybrid guest lectures!

AbleOTUK:

AbleOTUK has been busy especially for Rachel and myself with our TeamOTCP campaign for World Cerebral Palsy Day last week! Yet, the whole AbleOTUK team have been extremely busy and we have even more events coming up. Cheeky plug in but… please do check out our events page. The event I’m definitely the most excited for is that we are going to The Occupational Therapy Show again. But, this year multiple members of the team, including myself, are giving the talk. I am so excited to meet some of the founding members in-person, I literally talk to these people everyday so I cannot wait!! I’m also going to the show for both days the year with one of my best friends from uni, I very excited!!

If you follow me on Twitter, this blog probably doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know as I don’t shut up on Twitter. But if you’re following me on my other platforms then you possibly didn’t know any of this. Thats because I don’t always have the time to post on every platform. Activism is a full-time job, and I’m not writing this post to tell you how fabulous my life is (although I think it is), I’m writing this post to tell you how much work I do behind the scenes to maintain my activism. I absolutely love it and wouldn’t change it for the world and am incredibly lucky that my hobby has now become a job. Yet, that means a lot of work is involved meaning as someone who fatigues easily it can be hard to keep up on all platforms such as Instagram. Which is fine, I am a Twitter girl through and through so don’t be expecting reels any time soon because I haven’t got a clue! 

I don’t know if this blog is useful. I’ve previously been vocal about how I’m struggling to think of content due to other projects at the minute hence why we thought I’d do a little update. But, Not So Terrible Palsy is where it all began and I’m not leaving it behind!

Oh look, I’ve still managed to waffle on for almost 1000 words, typical! Thank you for reading!

Georgia x