Massive thank you to Lilly Cook who has written this guest blog for us.

There is a perception in the world that people with disabilities have to be in bed early, and can’t have a social life. This is totally wrong, this is why you have organisations such a Stay Up Late and Heart and Soul, to help break down this stereotypical view, cm’on for goodness sake it’s the 21^st century, people with and without disabilities should be able to mix in mainstream society and go wherever they wish.

I think art plays a massive role in knocking down this barrier and creating friendships, as the arts can create a mutual passion that can be shared by anyone, regardless of the diversity within the world. For example, I enjoy going to the theatre, concerts , cinema and museums with my friends. This allows you to widen your cultural experiences. It wasn’t until the other day when I writing for my blog that I realised how uncultured I am, and how the majority of the population probably is too. This is what makes me think that we need to stop sitting at home watching TV and go out, see the world and enjoy the range of arts that the world has to offer. Who better to share this with than your closest friends?

There are social media forums online that talk about art and promote events for everyone to go and enjoy. Rather than just scroll past, why not take up the offer and open your eyes to a new experience and you never know you may find someone with similar interests which can open the door to new friends. You never know what your going to find, don’t be scared to go out and get involved, you never know you might like it. You may find you might even find a new hobby or interest. For example, I joined a media course at Heart and Soul, this opened the door to lots of new friendships with people with similar interests to me, it also opened my eyes into how different art, media and culture can be and the enjoyment and skills that you can gain from being involved in art.

I’ve been thinking in my experience the best example I can give you that in my eyes proves that art can play a part in increasing friendship is, for the last two years I have been lucky enough through Heart n Soul to be part of a Europe wide project called Art-is where over the last two year we went to six different art organisations all over Europe to take a look and get fully involved into their way of life honestly for me especially it was such an eye opener into how differently things were run both in there work places and there way in life generally it was all so very chilled out and laid back compared to London. I was very tempted at one point to stay out there at one point.

Check out Lilly’s own blog here Journalist on Wheelz

PaulR

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