Irish entrepreneur secures Richard Branson's backing for new disability inclusion campaign

News Source: https://www.independent.ie/business/irish-entrepreneur-secures-richard-bransons-backing-for-new-disability-inclusion-campaign-37745583.html

 

Irish social entrepreneur Caroline Casey has secured Richard Branson’s backing for a new disability inclusion campaign.

The campaign is called ‘Diversish’, a term Ms Casey and her colleagues have coined to describe “businesses that call themselves diverse, but overlook, ignore or postpone anything to do with disability.”

The campaign was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos today.

“The time has come to make disability part of all board agendas. Unless we do that, none of us can truthfully say we’re addressing diversity. We’re just being diversish and that’s simply not enough,” Mr Branson said.

Ms Casey, a campaigner who is legally blind, also launched a campaign called ‘The Valuable 500’ – seeking to get 500 global businesses to put disability inclusion on their agenda.

Unilever, Microsoft, Barclays, Fujitsu, Cinepolis and Accenture have become the first six companies to sign up.

“I urge businesses to join The Valuable 500 movement and stop being diversish. It’s no longer good enough for companies to say ‘disability doesn’t fit with our brand’ or ‘it’s a good idea to explore next year’. Businesses cannot be truly inclusive if disability is continuingly ignored on leadership agendas.”