Name change to ‘promote ethos’ of Ability Shetland

Disability Shetland have officially changed their name to Ability Shetland following their AGM on Monday night.

Team leader Stephanie Bain said that they had felt that their previous name had focused on what people could not do, rather than what they could, and that they wanted to now “focus on the abilities of people in our community”.

“It is about what you can do that counts and we felt our name didn’t promote that ethos,” Ms Bain said.

“We wanted to take our time with this to get it right which is why we amended our logo last year to have a cross through the ‘Dis’”.

“This also helped people who maybe weren’t too sure about the new name as some participants of our organisation were worried people wouldn’t know what our organisation was about and who we supported, change isn’t always an easy thing for people.

“The gradual change has helped the transition from a deficit model to a strength based and we are so pleased to have finally made the official announcement of our new name last night at our AGM.”