PEOPLE with learning disabilities fighting the myth they are “benefits scroungers” have produced a video to tackle stigma against them.

We Will All Benefit, released online yesterday, features members of Oxford disability advocacy charity My Life My Choice, which has been applauded by Prime Minister David Cameron for making a “huge difference” to people’s lives.

Charity co-ordinator Bryan Michell, from Oxford, said members had experienced stigma in real life for some time, fuelled by anger at austerity cuts.

But he said the final impetus to make the video came when members protesting against stigma in Bonn Square last year were heckled by a group of men calling them “benefits scroungers”.

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Mr Michell said: “If I hadn’t seen it I’m not sure I would have believed it.”

He added that last year, when austerity cuts started to bite, many people were looking for scapegoats in the form of illegal immigrants and people on benefits. Documentaries such as Channel 4’s Benefits Street had not helped either.

Trustee Paul Scarrott, 43, from Oxford, who has a learning disability, told the Mail: “We want to show people what we can do. We don’t just sit on our bums; we want to work. We have opinions worth hearing and we run our own projects and charity.”

The video opens with a young man in a football shirt saying: “When I was 16 I decided I wanted to be a paramedic. I wanted to save lives and help people. I’m not a paramedic, I’m on benefits, but does that make me lazy?

“I volunteer at a charity where I DJ, I play football, I go out with my mates, I work at a hospital, I swim and I go to college, so why do people think I’m lazy and can’t do anything?”

Another man, on benefits since an accident at work, says people assume he is fiddling benefits.

A woman tells the camera: “For me benefits are not generous – benefits allow me to lead an okay life but I can’t afford luxuries. I can’t buy new clothes, I can’t go to the cinema and I can’t save money.”

All the people featured say they struggle to find work because of their disabilities.

The film is My Life My Choice’s contribution to the national campaign Who Benefits?, formed by charities including Crisis, Mind and Macmillan Cancer Support.

It was given £4,292 by Oxfam and £2,800 by Oxford City Council.

Watch the video at video.com/112900434

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