the stop start campaign

In June 2015, at an event in central Leeds the Dole Animators launched their ‘stop start campaign’ to challenge benefits stigma.

Speaking at the event, the group said:

“Our experiences of benefits, low-paid work and welfare reform do not fit most of what you see and hear about people on benefits in newspapers, on TV, and from politicians.  This needs to change.”

The Dole Animators are calling for politicians, the media, in fact all of us, to do the following:

STOP treating people on benefits as if they’re all the same

STOP using stigmatising language to describe people who rely on benefits

STOP making people on benefits the scapegoats for all that is wrong with the country at the moment

START recognising that being on benefits is very rarely a lifestyle choice. Rather, it’s something that could happen to any one of us, at any time

START listening properly to people on benefits as people who really know what ‘getting by’ on benefits involves

START giving opportunities for people on benefits to make their voices heard, unedited and unmediated by reality TV producers

START to recognise that many people who receive benefits are actually working

To sign up to the campaign, just get in touch