Alia Hassan as a newly graduated and isolated art student, Alia met Southampton Council for Independent Living (SCIL) founder Simon Brisenden quite by chance while seeking solutions to barriers in her own life. Learning about the Social model of disability transformed her view of herself and her surroundings. Later, Alia joined the steering group of the newly formed Southampton Centre for independent living in 1985. This Disabled run organisation had independent living (IL) at its heart: that Disabled people should have the right and support to live in their own homes with PA support, rather in a residential home or hospital under the control of staff. Alia designed SCIL’s 1st logo. Simon Brisenden was first to coin the slogan “Rights not charity” which defined the fight for disability specific civil rights legislation in the late 1980s and 1990s. Over the years SCIL and Alia empowered and enabled many disabled people to live independently. In the 1990s she also started to become active in disability equality training and became friends with Baroness Jane Campbell. She participated in various campaigns like the BCODP’s Independent Living Fund (ILF) and the Block telethon protest. She was a grass roots organiser for the Rights Now! Campaign for a Disabled Civil Rights bill, as well as working with organisations like the BCODP, DAN and the Campaign for Accessible transport (CAT). She continued to work with SCIL and its later iterations, Unity and Spectrum