Reading time: two minutes

This year the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD) fell on Saturday 3 December 2022.

On reflection of this year’s celebrations, I’m really pleased that there was a significant increase in the number of celebrations and events held by various organisations to mark this day. From celebrating the day at my own firm, to Sky releasing an IDPWD content collection on their Sky Q and Sky Glass platforms and even hearing a BBC Radio 1 host mention the day and how important it is to celebrate disabilities.

It's incredibly exciting to see a shift in organisations celebrating disability and long may it continue to grow.

Listed below are some activities and initiatives undertaken by organisations from this year’s celebrations, which are great ways to celebrate disability:

• Parallel Purple Sock Day is an initiative with the simple aim to encourage people to buy and wear a pair of their purple socks on IDPWD. This helps to raise positive awareness of disability inclusion while some of the profits go towards grants and professional support to help disability owned businesses and entrepreneurs.  
• Purple Light Up is a global movement to celebrate and draw attention to the economic contribution of the 386 million disabled employees around the world. Many companies light their spaces up with purple lights, including some iconic buildings.  
• My own firm, Freeths LLP, held various lunches across different offices to watch a TED Talk on disability inclusion and lit up its Oxford office with purple lights. One office provided lunch from a local caterer that supports people with learning disabilities to build their skills, confidence and ultimately their employability.  
• Ernst & Young (EY) shared profiles of its colleagues who are part of its Ability EY network.
• The Estée Lauder Companies shared on social media that it’s partnered with The Valuable 500 and Disability:IN initiatives to drive forward best practices across its organisation. The company’s IT team even held a hackathon for accessible beauty to champion new innovations in accessibility.

These are just a few examples I found that show the support across varied sectors for IDPWD. A few years ago, I undertook an exercise to review how many organisations were celebrating disability, there were only a handful of posts. This year… it was positively booming! Here’s to IDWPD 2023!