Soda - Building a more accessible world together

We founded Soda because we want to create a world that has access and inclusion front and centre, and you can help us do that.

The biggest barrier for people with disability, or anyone facing access issues, is how society is designed to disable them. Soda is here to change that.

Why is this so important?

More than 20% of the UK population is chronically ill and disabled. This means they are living with a condition that affects their ability to do daily activities in the long term. It's vital that products and services are accessible and inclusive to this group. But all too often this still isn't the case. 49% of working age adults still feel excluded from society because of their condition or impairment (Scope UK).

Public services have an imperative to be accessible to this population group, while commercial organisations have it in their best interest to increase sales and harness the billions of pounds of spending power (£274 billion per year in the UK alone) of disabled people.

What does Soda do?

We are building a collective of people with lived experience of chronic illness and disability who can offer their insights and expertise, and get paid for it.

People in the collective will be able to:

• Participate in user research: they will have a seat at the table through participating in co-production workshops, user research, testing and feedback sessions.
• Build Skills: through events and training, the collective will be able to  turn their lived experience into change, and build skills as leaders and professionals in their own right.
• Get paid: Soda and our partners value people‘s expertise, insights and time.
• Access resources: Soda will become an ‘access hub‘ to share knowledge and community insights.

Members of our collective could: 

• Give feedback on the process of booking a GP appointment with the NHS.
• Consult for Adidas to ensure that changing rooms in their stores are accessible.
• Co-produce the design of inclusive seating and quiet zones in a newly developed public space for the London Borough of Camden.  

We are changing the way organisations do accessibility 

Many organisations struggle to engage users with access needs in their work. Soda works with public service and commercial organisations to create more inclusive and accessible services and products by directly involving our experts in the process.  

We will offer organisations: 

• Access to a community of lived experience experts. 
• Expertise on how to meaningfully and ethically engage them in user research, testing, and workshops. 
• Workforce training backed up with cutting edge resources; enabling organisations to be proactive and genuinely inclusive in their culture, as well as their design.

Soda will:

• Work with government departments to implement the mandate for developing and testing accessibility across all digital solutions. 
• Work with banks to test how accessible their banking app is with people who use screen readers.
• Work with hospital trusts to consult patients on what matters to them when they are managing hospital appointments with specialist care teams.    

Who are we? 

We are Alex, Charli and Oli. We bring lived experience of chronic illness and disability, as well as allyship to Soda.

• Charli lives with chronic health conditions and is an active advocate, speaker and writer in the community. She has a background of 10 years managing membership networks, in community development, social impact, funding and partnerships. 
• Alex has a background in the arts where they worked for over 10 years giving voice to underserved artists especially from the queer, trans and disabled communities. Alex is an expert in digital design and development, a trained community/youth facilitator and a filmmaker. They are a queer, non-disabled ally who is passionate about justice and fairness in our society. 
• Oli brings wide-ranging experience from both the commercial and social impact sector. He has spent stints as a social prescriber for a homelessness charity, an employment advisor for refugees and a consultant on community engagement. Oli is non-disabled and is passionate about dismantling the social barriers to flourishing societies. 

How will your contributions support this vital work?

Your contribution will directly support the development of our collective of young adults who are chronically ill and disabled.  

We are going to be:

• Working with a focus group of chronically ill and disabled people to co-design our community offering. (Summer 2022)
• Recruiting an advisory board and Soda ‘champions’ - to be made up of people with lived experience, with expertise in access, as well as start-ups. (Summer 2022)
• Hiring our first chronically ill and disabled freelancers to work with us on creating the Soda brand. (Summer 2022) 
• Developing our website to share more about what Soda does as a vehicle for building our online community.. (Autumn 2022)

Where will your money go?

• £25 will support one person living with chronic illness or disability to participate in a 30 minute research session with Soda.
• £50 will cover the costs of one person living with chronic illness or disability to attend a prototyping workshop for testing out ideas.
• £150 will pay for a sign language interpreter for a half day workshop session
• £250 will support one day's work with a junior illustrator who is chronically ill or disabled to develop artwork for Soda. 
• £500 will support one day's work with a developer who is chronically ill or disabled to develop the Soda website. 

Please donate to Soda so we can build a more accessible world... Thank you SO much.

*All donations are eligible for Gift Aid which adds 25% to the donation amount, if you are a UK taxpayer. 

Details of your donation will be passed on to Soda, if you opt-into 'project owner marketing', in order for us to contact you in connection with our project.

The Funding Network is a UK registered charity and will collect donations on behalf of Soda through Crowdfunder. TFN will distribute all donations to Soda, less an administration fee of 5%. TFN will not contact you in relation to your donation.*

Image credit: