Mitzvah List

  • By Brian Leveson
  • •
  • 21 Dec, 2021
  • •

I’ve hit the Port. I am on my second bottle of the festive season. Now, don’t be horrified, we began our festive season in late November with Chanukah. And this was the blog I was going write at that time. I had planned to send out a Mitzvah or blessing everyday to show my gratitude to the wonderful people who support us.

Mitzvah List - in 2021 we have been blessed

I’ve hit the Port. I am on my second bottle of the festive season. Now, don’t be horrified, we began our festive season in late November with Chanukah. And this was the blog I was going write at that time. I had planned to send out a Mitzvah or blessing everyday to show my gratitude to the wonderful people who support us.

That never happened.

Work, fried food and covid got in the way and revised deadlines like ‘Disabled History Month’ and then ‘The end of the school term’ came early (thanks again ‘Covid’) and went.

So here it is!

Our last blog / newsletter / spam mail for 2021!

The very late late late Mitzvah or Blessings List 2021

Local Councillors

We are counting our blessings and we are grateful to the councillors of Haringey council who support us and have now fully embraced the concept of coproduction. 

Special mentions go to the Leader of the Council Peray Ahmet whose dedicated herself to the concept of production not only as Leader but also as Chair of Overview and Scrutiny.

Deputy Leader Mike Hakata who has listened and taken on board our views on LTNs and our love of Haringey Parks.

Cllr Brabazon has championed Changing Places and we were delighted to go to the opening of the one in Finsbury Park with Cllr Kirsten Hearn – she loves the roundabout does Cllr Hearn!

Thanks are due to David Theakston who leads the lovely parks team who are dedicated and tireless in their efforts. We love Haringey Parks. Love them. Love them enough to die for them? Enough to die without them, probably. A regular visitor to our local park, Elizabeth Place, is Cllr Isidoros Diakides, who is a strong supported of our local community alongside Cllr Makbule Gunes.

Cllr Seema Chandwani is a massive supporter of the whole of the Tottenham community and she has been a champion for disabled people though her work on blue badges, dedicated bays and she is Queen of the Bins and Trees. She is a familiar contributor to those of us in the Tottenham Rise Facebook Group, where I think she is adored. If she wasn’t before, she was after her swift action over the ‘Tesco Spikes’.

We give thanks for Councillor Pippa Connor, who is a stalwart supporter of carers and regularly attends the Abide carers coffee morning.

We also give thanks for the Lib Dem children’s spokesperson Cllr Tammy Palmer supported by Josh Dixon on Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel who both play a vital role in ensuring that SEND families are supported and scrutinise policies and performance along side the panel members led by Chair Cllr Makbule Gunes.

The miracle of Channukah

For the festival of Channukah candles are lit over eight successive nights to symbolise the miracle of one night’s worth of oil lasting for eight nights.

Here are our 8 blessings for Channukah

Markfield

The Markfield Project, Haringey who need help finding £4,000 funding to run special play sessions for groups of up to 8 children and young people, aged 5 to19, who have severe/complex physical disabilities, including paraplegia, complex health needs, profound and multiple learning disabilities and life-limiting conditions.

PedalPower

Originally set up by Jo Roach do that her daughter could keep cycling after moving in supported accommodation, PedalPower  need £10,000 to help fund new bikes for learning disabled people to run sessions at New River, White Hart Lane Tottenham

Brightstars

Brightstars who won the European Diversity Award for Community Project of the Year was set up with money from the personal savings of parent carer and Woman of Substance Vida Black.

Chaining Places

Haringey now has a Changing Places in Finsbury Park! But what you don’t know is that Changing Places an organisation set up by two mums who demanded with no apologies that their children be treated with the dignity and respect that we all have every right to expect when we go to the loo! Changing Places like people to get involved in their campaigning through running local campaigns (we do that!).

Charities set up by parents! Rett UK

This year we blogged about Rett Syndrome, Advocating for better outcomes for people with Rett Syndrome is another charity set up by parents Rett UK. Go to their website to see how you can support them.

Abide carers group

Sometimes you just need a break from all this campaigning and advocating. This year Cllr Brabazon suggested we ‘zoom-along’ to the Abide carers group coffee morning. We had a fantastic time, which you can read all about on our pages. If you feel inclined to support the coffee morning, contact organiser Sue Hessel directly via this link.

Haringey HealthWatch

How much do we love Haringey HealthWatch? Seriously, it is no secret that we admire Mike ‘he retired so now has 2 jobs’ Wilson, ‘new Mike’ Jane East and the lovely Val who ran Transitions Reference Group. Well, HealthWatch have some secrets (shush – it’s just for over 50’s). Having saved our lives and loved ones and got us all vaccinated and sent us our medicines in the Pandemic, we ‘discovered’ (they didn’t know they were lost) Haringey Circle. We LOVE them. This is the sort of thing that carers need. They do activities and walks, a magazine AND ‘At Home’ Services – someone came round and did the ‘odd-jobs’ that as carers we never ever have time to do. If you are over 50 you must JOIN HARINGEY CIRCLE.

London Black Cab Taxis

And last but absolutely not least, we love London Black Cab taxis. Now, you probably all know the urban myth about London Black Cab Taxis not charging kids going to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Well, it’s not an urban myth. So, should you feel so inclined, you might like to donate to the London Taxi Drivers’ Charity for Children.

Each and every one of the above have been an blessing to us in 2021
And we give them all our heartfelt thanks

Vindictive bullying when a child dies

By Brian Leveson • 28 Sep, 2023
About 3 or 4 times a year we get the euphemistic message 'Parents please note we have put a letter in your child's bag' - its a world away from how a child's death was handled in my child's first school

10 stages of exponentially increasing incompetence

By Brian Leveson • 27 Sep, 2023
More of a trial by ordeal than a well organised clearly set out administrative process for moving the care of vulnerable young adults from Haringey's Children's Services to Adult Services. We have been failed at every stage of the process.

Active travel does not work if you are paraplegic and Transport for London seem to make the rules up as you (try to) go along...

By Brian Leveson • 24 Sep, 2023
Never EVER get on the bus without a camera running if you need the priority wheelchair space

Move your f-cking buggies from the wheelchair spaces on buses

By Brian Leveson • 17 Sep, 2023
The reality of using a London Bus in the teeming rain on a Sunday afternoon is no joke when the parents of a paraplegic person in a wheelchair clash with the self-entitled buggy-pushing parents of toddlers.

The barefaced lies of Haringey Council

By Brian Leveson • 13 Sep, 2023
At 3pm today I received some barefaced lies from Haringey Council Adult Social Care in response to a photograph I published online yesterday and the media interest it generated

Haringey SEND Transport: 17 year old obnoxious diesel fume spewing death trap on wheels - and Haringey knows it

By Brian Leveson • 22 Jun, 2023
Haringey SEND Transport are insisting that a 17 year old minibus with no air conditioning is a suitable vehicle to transport my paraplegic son in this heatwave. The appalling conditions inside the minibus inside the bus is something they knew about last summer, yet they have to date done nothing whatsoever provide a suitable minibus this year nor appropriately mitigate the temperatures inside the minibus.The conditions inside the minibus are so bad that they triggered multiple seizures during the heatwave as my son has epilepsy, which they SEND transport department know about and they also know that they are triggered by heat.It is not just son who is impacted: last year we know of one child who died on Haringey SEND Transport in the summer heatwave and another who had seizures.

Is this really NECESSARY?

By Brian Leveson • 03 Jan, 2023
I am simply asking a question - are we all absolutely certain that the road closure / travel restrictions (commonly know as LTNs) placed on some of the most severely disabled people who are wholly reliant on cars are absolutely necessary

Disabled people need permission to travel for every single trip!

By Brian Leveson • 02 Jan, 2023
Haringey's road closures exemptions policy for disabled people is not fit for purpose, unduly burdensome and intrusive - it's time to stand up against the pro-LTN lycra-clad cycling bullies

2 Wheels GOOD, Blue Badge Holders EVIL?

By Brian Leveson • 01 Jan, 2023
Is the argument for and against exemptions for disabled people in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods really a case of GOOD versus EVIL?

Should Peray Ahmet resign as Leader of Haringey Council and take her pro-LTN bullies with her?

By Brian Leveson • 31 Dec, 2022
Letters from Labour Grandees and survey results from Haringey Council show people who opposed LTNs are women, elderly and disabled. Yet Peray Ahmet has described anti-LTN people as homophobic, islamophobic, sexist, racist and xenophobic.
More Posts
Share by: