Monday 8th March is International Women's Day - a time to celebrate and support girls and women everywhere. The theme this year is #breakthebias. Women with disabilities often face double discrimination across many areas of their lives, including living arrangements, employment, access to healthcare and much more. 

To celebrate International Women's Day 2022, I will be Stepping Up for Girls with colleagues at the University of Surrey and my daughter, Emily (aged 12), to support Plan International UK. Emily has a rare genetic syndrome called Smith-Magenis Syndrome (SMS), caused by a microdeletion of chromosome 17. Key consequences of SMS include learning disability, severely disrupted sleep pattern, delayed speech and language and challenging behaviour. Emily struggles with walking/exercise due to hypermobility and low muscle tone. 

We will commit to taking part in daily exercise (e.g. walking, running, biking, gym workouts) every day for 14 days to help raise critical funds to help tackle gender inequality. We will Step Up for the first time on Wednesday 23rd February and finish on International Women's Day.

Please support me in any way you can: sign up yourself and join us in raising funds, walk/run/star jump with us, or sponsor us through this just giving page. Together we can make a difference for girls everywhere and the women they will one day become.