Disabilities Collective

We are an autonomous collective, meaning you must identify as having a disability, mental illness, chronic illness, auditory or visual impairment, neurodivergent condition, or other health condition in order to become a member. We aim to provide a space that simultaneously provides social connection and community for disabled students, as well as participating in activism and advocacy to improve the lives of disabled people both at university and in broader society.

We strive to operate on the principles of disability justice, a framework created by disabled comrades in the US that takes a fundamentally anti-capitalist, anti-racist and abolitionist view, centring people most impacted by violence and oppression in order to achieve true disabled liberation for us all. Prior to 2022 the Disability collective was inactive for a number of years, and it will require some time and hard work to build it up to be the place we envision it to be. As your Disability Officer I will lead where necessary, but will put most of my effort into learning from and building community with my fellow disabled students, so we can together create a space built upon solidarity, connection and liberation.

As a collective we hold regular meetings that all disabled students are invited to attend, where we can discuss our goals and plans for the year ahead. We also hold social events throughout the year, to provide an opportunity for disabled people to connect with each other. Throughout the year we have a number of campaigns we will be working on to make life easier for disabled students at UTS. These include improving the outreach and ease-of-access of the UTS Accessibility service, revitalising and improving the services offered by the UTS mental health service, and looking into connecting the UTS Psychology clinic with the student union to provide a more easily accessible and unified service