The highlight of my summer was attending the Satellites youth festival at the Bath and West showground. This is an event where young people can explore their faith through a variety of worship, workshops, games and seminars, all whilst having a great time together. I even had the opportunity  to showcase some of my skateboarding skills, with some assistance of course! On the last evening there was a fancy dress party with a Disney theme, where there were some pretty amazing costumes – I dressed up in a  cardboard box as Wall-E.

I was honoured to be asked, with my friend Alaric, to write a poem about disability, inclusion in church, Jesus and friendship. This was filmed and shown on screen in front of 4000 worshippers, and the response from everyone was amazing.  Alaric and I spent many hours planning, writing and filming, but the results made people think about inclusion in faith and how acceptance is the key to true accessibility. Our aim was to get people to challenge their own prejudices, whether they be unconscious bias or otherwise, to look beyond disability, to see the gifts which God has bestowed on all of His children.

The hope was that we could shift perspectives on accessibility and inclusion from being merely tokenistic acts to instead recognising the value of every member of our Christian community. This is turn sets us on a path of true acceptance and a deeper understanding of what it means to have a relationship with God.