A few words from our owner

Hello, I'm Oliver, but most people call me Ollie. I was born with a physical disability which was caused by being born with a Lipomyelomeningocele, a piece of fatty tissue which in my case grew whilst being attached to my spinal chord, thus resulting in having continuous permanent nerve damage being caused until I had the majority of it removed when I was a toddler. Unfortunately, the damage was done by then.

This meant that I grew up having a tethered spinal chord and had to learn to live with the consequences- the most notable being a lack of mobility in my lower body which now means that I am a full-time manual wheelchair user. Or as I see it, I just had to learn to adapt to a different way of living.

For some see me as being disadvantaged in life; always playing catchup to those around me. To some extent, this is true as I have had more unique challenges growing up as person with a disability than had I not had one. Or have I? As isn’t life one big challenge for us all?

Regardless of our circumstances, we all have lives filled with high’s, low’s and everything in between and I view myself as being no different. What I have done though, is learn how to manage the challenges I face. In particular, my disability. In fact, I use the very thing that some might think would hold me back, to propel myself further towards achieving my goals.

The difference being is that I have more determination to prove to myself that I can do anything.

However, the lack of equality for people with disabilities still exists today. Will it ever change? Who knows. If it were up to me, there would be no people with disabilities and I would be climbing a mountain somewhere doing cartwheels all the way. But unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. So I view it as a responsibility for myself to help improve the current physical and social infrastructures which are already in place.

There have been major improvements though, and therefore at HandiChap Disability Consultancy we strive to make a positive contribution towards the continued success of improving disability equality and accessibility through the consultation services that we provide.