The View from Where I Sit

Tag: purple

  • The Purple Pound

    The Purple Pound

    By: Daniella Jade Lowe

    Disabled shoppers now have equality in business called the ‘Purple Pound’. The Purple Pound represents the spending power of the disabled household. A disabled household is a household in which at least one of the members has a disability.

    The Purple Pound here in England is equivalent to the Black Dollar in America. This is England’s way of ensuring Inclusive Marketing for the disabled population.

    Organisations are missing out on the business of disabled consumers due to poor accessibility (both physical and digital) and not being disability confident in their customer services approach. Out of this came ‘The Purple Shopper’.

    The Purple shopper was created to make the disabled person’s shopping experience a personal one, where stores are accessible at their convenience. No more queuing at checkouts, no over bright and loud environments.

    Businesses can join this initiative and become a Purple Shopper by signing up on their website at http://www.purpleshopper.co.uk.

    The Power of the Purple Pound

    In the UK, it is thought that some seven million people of working age have a disability, which all adds up to an awful lot of spending power.

    It is reckoned to be worth around £249 billion to the economy.

    According to statistics, 75% of disabled people have left a store or website due to inaccessibility. To combat this, ‘Purple Tuesday’ came into effect.

    Purple Tuesday 2020 is a change programme for organisations of all sizes from all sectors to get involved in, with the common goal of improving the customer experience for disabled people 365 days a year.

    Purple Tuesday is about creating a step change improvement in the awareness of the value and needs of disabled customers. It is about making the customer experience accessible.

    Participating organisations will make public commitments (a minimum of one new activity or initiative) to ensure sustainable changes are made. For organisations, this will result in the opening up of products and services to the disability market.

    I like these initiatives because they tackle isolation while promoting independence. Bermuda is a Purple Tuesday campaigner which makes me happy: https://bernews.com/2019/11/bermuda-joins-global-purple-tuesday-campaign/. For more information about this go to http://www.purpletuesday.org.uk.

  • The Purple Vote Campaign

    By: Daniella Jade Lowe

    The Legacy International Group has launched The Purple Vote Campaign. This group was started by Sara Flay and Leighton Morris who lead a team of 15 people with various disabilities.

    The Purple Vote Campaign was launched in February. This campaign was created to raise awareness about what concerns disabled people and how they can represent their constituents and to ensure that the disabled community have a voice in the democratic process which includes encouraging disabled people to vote in public committees and groups as well as communicating with their local assembly members and MPs. Purple is the colour of disability.

    Elections are being held next year. This should see more disabled people in Parliament. This campaign endorses more inclusion in Politics. Welsh Government and Parliament want to champion disability inclusion. It’s about making politics accessible and influencing policy.

    They also encourage people to pursue Access to Work. Hopefully this will expand to local and central government positions.

    I like and approve of this initiative because it will cause society to reimagine law enforcement and legislation. This will also test how well MPs understand disability. For more information log on to http://www.legacyig.org.