Samantha Renke is a broadcaster, actor, campaigner, and author. She wears many labels including inspirational and burden. She was named as 3rd in The Shaw Trust Power 100 List of the UK’s most influential disabled people and is the lead for The Diversity Trust, UNLRN and Paramount (formerly VIACOM), an ambassador for Scope and a patron of Head2Head Theatre. Samantha has appeared on numerous radio & TV talk shows like Loose Women, Jeremy Vine on 5, as a panellist in parliament, on News hubs such as BBC, ITV, Sky and more. Her debut memoir ‘You are the best thing since sliced bread’ is out now.

However, it’s Samantha’s lived experiences that helps us to unpack the harmful stereotypes disabled people face and how our own unconscious bias impacts the disability community and adds to further marginalisation of the largest minority group.

It’s hearing how her parents coped with a child born with Brittle Bone condition, watching, and caring for her as she broke over 200 bones in her body whilst growing up. However, it’s not these physical scars that have shaped Samantha – it’s accepting her father’s sudden death and the guilt he lived with for his disabled child, it’s the pressure of a codependent and at times toxic relationship with her mother, it’s the understanding of sibling rivalry and toxic jealousy tendencies. All these have challenged on top of her own poor reactions and actions of those around her and unfair treatment in a free world.

“It’s never too late to unlearn and relearn and become the best disability advocate you can be!”