Mencap support loads of Self - Advocacy groups across the Uk. Our group OUR SHOUT and many other groups saw A Self - Advocacy called 'CHANGING OUR LIVES' this Wednesday just gone. The great thing about getting together with other Self - Advocacy groups is that we can share ideas and learn off one another.

'CHANGING OUR LIVES' came to tell us about their People's Parliament where they come from in Sandwell. I found it hard to believe myself until 'CHANGING OUR LIVES' showed us the DVD of them working in their parliament. The idea of having a Parliament is so people with Learning Disabilities can take more control over our lives. For eg; having control on what the money is spend on. We have come up with ideas that we could be Learning Disability MPs.

THE TRAINING WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE. Most of the training we have already got. We will need to go on a Leadership course, we will need to learn about the history of learning disability, we will need to learn about the history of Self - Advocacy and what Parliament is about.

We will encourage people with disabilities in our areas to be able to speak for themselves. We will go out there to talk to people with disabilities to find out what they want in their live. We will not just talk about what is going to happen, it won't come down to our say so but we will still find out how many their thoughts will match with our thoughts. When it comes to a lot of things that a lot of people with disabilities would like to change that it would be taken to the main MPs of the area, then to Houses Of Parliament in London.'CHANGING OUR LIVES' is making 'OUR SHOUT' thinking about us doing the same for Wolverhampton. May this could happen to a lot of places in the future. Let's not build our hopes up but never say never.

We will train and educate people without disabilities to speak and write in easy words instead of jargon.

Being Learning Disability MPs will be the next step the ladder from from been Self - Advocacy
workers.

We need to have 15 Learning Disability Mps with different disabilities so they can understand 15 different disabilities, this includes Mental Health problems too. We will just keep the numbers small for the time being.