Reaching the Capacity Ceiling

Inclusion London: Weeknotes 2, by Jumoke Abdullahi

Prior to the beginning of the CAST/Catalyst project, I had been reaching out to Deaf and Disabled Person-led Organisations (DDPOs) that had previously worked on a talk kit with Inclusion London and On Our Radar. It was the perfect opportunity to utilise and bolster some of the learning that they had received during a previous project.

Practically all of the organisations that I had reached out to were interested in being part of the new focus, however, one complaint kept coming up. People simply did not have the capacity. As a sector, there is never enough. Of anything. Especially for DDPOs that specifically focus on the needs of the Deaf and Disabled communities. In usual times, there was not enough funding, people or time.

However, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, people were just stretched entirely too thin. Working from home was taking its toll and the workload never seemed to get lighter. The stresses and struggles of having to do everything from home, including home schooling for those that were parents meant that this was just the wrong time.

It was not for a lack of excitement or curiosity, but rather an opportunity that seemed to make itself available at the wrong time. OOR had created a beautiful poster that both sides used to promote the project, but we were not able to get the number of DDPOs that we had originally stated in our project proposal.

Even with this, I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know Disabled staff and volunteers in DDPOs in and out of London. The aim is to have the work become evergreen so that it is still useful to those that could not participate in real time.