London Met honoured its affiliation with Arsenal Football Club at the Emirates Stadium, where Arsenal marked International Day of Persons with Disabilities with a special event focused on accessibility and inclusion in the workplace alongside Google Pixel and Microlink.
Emirates Stadium played host to local partners, businesses, and disabled communities who came together to share experiences and knowledge, and learn about some of the solutions and actions that can be taken to improve outcomes in work for disabled people.
It comes a year on from research published by London Met and Islington Council that showed over half of disabled people in the borough are out of work, a problem facing the UK.
Challenges remain in Islington and the UK more broadly. Dr Jane Lewis, who led London Met’s research into this area, delved deeper into the root causes of such high unemployment amongst disabled communities. Case study samples from the disability employment report launched last year were featured in the discussion.
She commented: “Disabled people experience numerous barriers and discrimination both getting a job and while in employment, including stigma and accessibility challenges. This can also result in pay gaps with their non-disabled colleagues.”
More esteemed colleagues from London Met including Lina Nyby, Qicheng Yu and Sandra Fernando and her brilliant London Met student presented impactful findings, including an impressive disability employment index relating to the research on a vibrant stand, designed to showcase some of the technologies developed to support accessibility for the disabled community.
Top tier speakers
The evening featured special contributions from partners and experts across the space, as well as Arsenal Managing Director, Richard Garlick.
Author, mouth artist and Arsenal supporter, Henry Fraser, also spoke on the “transformative power of acceptance” in conversation with award-winning filmmaker and former London 2012 Marketing Chief, Greg Nugent.
Arsenal was the first professional football club to achieve Disability Confident Leader status in 2018 and retained this status earlier this year, part of an ongoing commitment to being a diverse and inclusive club for its people.
Hannah Mansour, Director of ESG at Arsenal, said*:* “Inclusion is a force for progress.”
“When we surround ourselves with new and different perspectives, we make better decisions, which drives us forward. At the core of that is a sense of belonging – where we feel we can contribute to growth and progress.
“That’s what we’re striving towards at Arsenal, and we were delighted to share this perspective with our partners and local community at our home in north London, with the goal of supporting better employment outcomes for disabled people. It’s important to lift each other on this journey – sharing experiences, solutions, and areas for improvement – so that we can build a more connected and inclusive community where everyone feels they belong.”
Christopher Patnoe, Head of Accessibility and Disability Inclusion for EMEA at Google, joined on behalf of one of Arsenal’s partners, Google Pixel. He spoke on the importance of “failing forward” in making progress.
He explained: “If you design for the edges, you get the centre for free...if you make accessibility and inclusion scary, people aren’t going to want to do it – but if you make it joyous, fun and innovative, then you are going to attract the best talent. Your product gets better, your culture gets better, and your business gets better.”
London Met is proud to support partners and Islington neighbours like Arsenal with research innovation that has real impact on peoples’ lives, in and beyond the workforce.