Eden Project: disability embarrassment comments row
- 4 Apr 06, 3:10 PM
A senior member of staff has resigned after saying that they like to hide their disabled employees away from public view.
Horticulture Week that Sue Minter, now former Director of Horticulture at Eden, said that the image of horticulture was "bad enough already". Specifically the comments were about people with learning difficulties.
She told a recent Green Skills Seminar: "We place the disabled behind the scenes. We have a responsibility for professional horticulture鈥檚 image."
Yahoo News today reports that , saying that: "The Eden Project denied the claims and said the project was about 'acknowledging diversity and using people's strengths'."
It reminded Crippled Monkey of the made by the former Aussie Vice President of the Commonwealth Games, Arthur Tunstall, in 1994, just before the integrated Games in Victoria, Canada. He didn't like the fact that disabled events were being held alongside those for non-disabled athletes. He said:
"It's got to be an embarrassment because people are going out of their way to assist them, and the able people are a little bit embarrassed to have them around. I can tell you back in Australia people feel exactly the same way."Those were the unenlightened dark ages of disability though, because Mr Tunstall didn't resign. But he was 82 and a bit of an old codger. He later drowned in a solo yachting accident ... just a few years before the Paralympics committee banned athletes with learning difficulties, a ban that still exists today. Hmm.
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