Pravjoth Gill

She/Her
Vice President Equity and Inclusion 2023/24
Birmingham City Students Union

Award category:

The Clare Gray Rising Star

Born with cerebral palsy, Pravjoth was inspired to advocate and empower disabled people. Upon starting her undergraduate degree at Birmingham City University, she founded a small business called Movement Fitness and Nutrition which will be an online platform personalising fitness and nutrition plans for disabled people to ensure that they are able to live a healthy life. From this, she started a podcast called the Our Rights Podcast where she spoke to a wide range of individuals with a disability to learn their lived experience, which went successful. During her final year, she was elected by students to be the Vice President Equity and Inclusion at BCUSU. She then advocated for disabled students, notably increasing awareness about Disability History Month by organising the first Disabled Student Conference and having connections to organisations such as Disabled Student UK, Birmingham City Council and more. She won the Staff Sir Lenny Henry Inclusivity Award at the I AM BCU Awards 2024 and was a finalist of the Inclusivity Award at the Inspirational Youth Awards 2024.

I didn’t see a lot of representation for disabled people growing up and I did not know who to turn to when I had difficulties. There was also the struggle of having the right reasonable adjustments in place for me to live my life at the fullest. I was able to advocate for other disabled students and empower them to do amazing things!

Q&A

Pravjoth Gill
I would say to be patient and allow yourself to get to knows your strengths so that you are able to be confident in your work!
It has allowed disable students to raise their voices to become their best! It has also allowed disabled students to feel like they matter in a world with accessibility is a given rather than a need!
I aspire to be an expert in equality, diversity and inclusion and so disability advocacy is one of my main priorities. We recognise Intersectionality plays a huge role in ensuring that we advocate and empower so many different types of people and so this encourages me to go into a career of advocacy.
I like to read a good little book especially different types of books. I also love to hang out and socialise with my friends and family and I love to watch Netflix on a regular basis 😉
Seeing the look some peoples faces when they feel represented and empowered brings joy in my heart
Dogs for sure! I got a 3 year Cane Corso called Rambo and he’s the cutest thing ever!!
I would like to change the fact that accessibility needs to be a need rather than a want, because as disabled people we need to ensure that we feel comfortable
I think awareness is one of the key things that we have to do is disable people to ensure that they are educated on disabled peoples matters and that we are able to address those concerns especially when it comes to things such as accessibility

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Charity, social enterprise, Children and young people, Community, Disability Advocacy, Education, Equality, Health and wellbeing, Television, radio, podcast

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Image credits: BCUSU
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