Today we are sharing an important campaign from one of our partners, Disability Rights UK (DRUK). DRUK is the UK’s leading Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO), led and run by Disabled people. In this blog, People’s Voice Media’s Head of Partnerships and Practice, Isaac Samuels, explains why this campaign is so important to them as a Disabled person:

As a queer Disabled person, I know how powerful it can be when someone takes the time to listen, to go beyond the words to truly understand our experiences, our challenges, our hopes and our dreams.

For too long, Disabled people, and especially those of us with multiple identities, have had decisions made about us without us. Our experiences can be overlooked, our barriers misunderstood, and our voices pushed to the side. But our stories matter. Our knowledge matters. Our lived experience is expertise.

This is why I want to share and encourage people to take part in the Disability Rights UK Strategy Survey.

This is an important opportunity for Disabled people and allies to help shape the future of disability rights work and ensure that the priorities reflect what people are actually experiencing in their everyday lives.

For me, creating change starts with listening. It starts with recognising that every person’s experience is different, whether that relates to disability, identity, access, healthcare, employment, relationships, community or simply being able to live life with dignity and choice.

As someone who believes deeply in the power of lived experience, co-production and inclusion, I know how important it is that our voices are part of the conversation. We should not just be invited into spaces after decisions have been made. We should be involved from the beginning.

I am asking my networks, friends, colleagues and communities to please support this important work. If you are Disabled, have lived experience, support Disabled people, or care about equality and inclusion, your voice can help make a difference.

Please take part and share widely.

Take the Disability Rights UK Strategy Survey:
https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/take-part-our-strategy-survey

Thank you to Disability Rights UK for continuing to champion Disabled people’s rights and for creating opportunities for people’s voices to shape the future.

Our voices are powerful.
Our experiences matter.
Our stories can create change.

DisabledVoices #QueerDisabled #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityRights #LivedExperience #CoProduction #Inclusion

⚠ Content note: This blog talks openly about suicide and bereavement by suicide. Please take care of yourself as you read.

We’re really excited to announce Building the Space, a powerful new campaign led by one of our incredible Community Reporters. In this blog, Isaac Samuels, Community Reporter and Head of Partnerships and Practice here at People’s Voice Media, tells us about how Building the Space will make sure that racialised voices are heard in suicide prevention.

I’m building something. And I need you to know why.

I’ve been sitting with this for a long time. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I know exactly what it costs to say it.

I’ve experienced suicidality. I’ve survived suicide attempts. I’ve lost people I love to suicide. And for years, I’ve watched systems try to address suicide prevention in ways that left people like me, and communities like mine, out of the frame entirely.

These are well-meaning, resourced, often genuinely caring systems. It wasn’t because they didn’t care. It was because they didn’t ask. And when you don’t ask, you miss things. Huge, life-altering things.

Race matters in suicide prevention. Identity matters. Stigma, culture, trauma, trust – all of it matters. But racialised communities have been missing from the strategies, the decision-making spaces and the conversations about what good support actually looks like.

That’s not an oversight. That’s a pattern. And patterns can be changed.

Someone said to me recently:

“If they don’t see us, how can they support us?”

It stopped me in my tracks. Because it’s so simple. And so true.

So I’m doing something about it. I’m launching Building the Space – a self-led campaign focused on amplifying racialised voices in suicide prevention. Not as a grand gesture, or a campaign full of polished messaging and distant statistics. But as something rooted in real people, real stories, and real community.

Using the Community Reporter method of lived experience storytelling, the campaign will create space for people to share their experiences safely, honestly, and on their own terms. Those stories won’t just sit on a page. They’ll become learning and evidence. We will build a well of community-led data that organisations, researchers, charities, and government can use to build approaches that properly meet the needs of racialised communities.

Over the next year, I want this to be a place where people can share, shape, influence, and lead. Not just contribute. Lead.

Because here’s the thing I keep coming back to:

Prevention built without us, fails us.

That isn’t an accusation. It’s a fact. And it’s also an invitation. An invitation to do this differently. To close the gap between what systems say they want to do, and what the people most affected really need.

The people closest to the pain must also be closest to the power.

I’ve spent my career believing that. Living it. And now, with everything this work carries for me personally, I’m putting it into practice in the most honest way I know how.

If this speaks to you – whether you have lived experience, work in the sector, or simply believe things should be different – I’d love you to follow along, share it, or just sit with it for a while.

Something is coming. And it’s being built with care: https://communityreporter.net/building-space

And if you are a racialised person with a story to tell about suicide – I promise to hold the space for you to tell it, and work alongside you to make sure it gets heard. Let me know that you are interested in telling your story – in whatever way works best for you – by filling in this short online form.

If you have been affected by suicide, suicidal thoughts, self-harm or are feeling distressed, please seek support. Seeking help is a sign of strength and you are not alone. If you ever need mental health support, here are some helpful resources:

Samaritans: Available 24/7 — call 116 123

SANEline: Call 0300 304 7000 (4:30pm – 10:30pm)

Shout: Text SHOUT to 85258

Silverline: Call 0800 4 70 80 90 (24/7)

CALM: Call 0800 58 58 58 (5pm – midnight)

Kooth: Visit Kooth for online support