Visually impaired health advocate and author awarded honorary doctorate for empowering disabled Salfordians
Alumnus Ben Andrews was welcomed back to the University of Salford to receive an honorary doctorate in recognition of his work to make activity, health and life more accessible and inclusive for disabled people.
Ben graduated from the University of Salford in 2016 after completing an Exercise and Health Sciences Degree. Driven by his own personal experience of Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative visual impairment, Ben used his time at university to research ways to support better health outcomes for disabled people.
After university, Ben won a small NHS Salford Innovation Fund grant to pilot a low-cost community-based model supporting the health and wellbeing of Salford’s disabled residents. This pilot led to Ben founding a Community Interest Company, Beyond Empower, aimed at helping places support disabled people to lead healthy, active lives.
Since, Ben and Beyond Empower have gone on to secure contracts with NHS Greater Manchester and local authorities, as well as supporting sectors such as infrastructure, leisure and transport to work towards more accessible offers for disabled people. They support hundreds of disabled people each year towards healthy, active lives.
Ben has a variety of co-chair positions in Greater Manchester including Greater Manchester Moving’s Commitment to Inclusive Leisure and Active Travel for disabled people and more recently Greater Manchester Mayor’s Disabled People’s Panel.
Named Salford’s Citizen of the Year in 2019 and one of the most influential disabled people in the UK in the Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100 in 2022, Ben is also keen to engage younger audiences on the topics of accessibility. He has written a series of books, Better Places, to help children think about how places can be made better for disabled people.
On receiving his award from the university, Ben said: “I’m immensely grateful for this award. The University of Salford gave me the opportunities to study a field I’m passionate about, which I’ve been lucky enough to forge a career in. Being from Salford makes this degree from the University of Salford all the more meaningful to me. I’d like to thank the whole of the School of Health and Society for their support and recognition.”
Professor Vicky Halliwell, Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the School of Health and Society at the University of Salford, said: “Ben’s efforts and commitment to reducing the health and societal inequalities that disabled people experience are truly inspirational. We are very proud to confer on him this Honorary Doctorate of Sciences.”
