Susanna Hancock
Susanna Hancock
Diversity Manager
Mencap
Biography
I have worked for the past 17 years in the field of Diversity and Equal Opportunities. But I’ve been a passionate fighter for them both, since the day I heard, on my little Transistor radio,, in my room at my “special school”, the voice of Nelson Mandela at his trial saying that equal opportunities was something for which he wanted to live, but for which he was also prepared to die! I was 13 then!
I’ve done all sorts of jobs in the diversity and equal opportunities field: I’ve managed a disability team in a local authority, and been deputy head of a women’s unit. I’ve managed a social services equality team, and was manager of diversity and equal opportunities at Middlesex University for 7 years, before my current job.
I am now diversity manager at Mencap, which is a charity which works with and for people with learning disabilities, supporting them to gain equal rights to services, employment and choices.
I’ve always been involved in campaigning, and have chaired a number of disability organisations: the last one being the national Disability Alliance.
Which fights to break the links between disability and poverty. But don’t think I just fight on disability issues. I care about all the diversity strands equally, and I know that while one of those groups is denied equal rights, I can never feel free myself!
