discrimination against disabled people, particularly blacks, will share her experiences on an international radio show next month.

Miss Mildrette Hill, who is confined to a wheelchair, appears on the BBC World Service special series Parallel Lives on September 6.

The service is broadcast to dozens of countries around the world, including Bermuda.

Miss Hill will tell millions of listeners how she co-founded the Black Disabled Peoples Group two years ago in response to Britain's lack of anti-discrimination laws.

An artist, writer and law student, Miss Hill has appeared on several British television shows in the past to discuss the challenges and discrimination she has faced because of her disability.

The former Royal Gazette reporter left Bermuda several years ago to pursue a law degree.

She has been studying at the University of London for the past six years.

Speaking from her London flat yesterday, Miss Hill explained it was taking so long to get her degree because she had encountered a three-pronged attack of discrimination.

Miss Hill said she had found London law chambers "inaccessible'' in her efforts to find a firm at which to do her pupilage. She felt it was because of her sex, race and the fact she was a wheelchair user.

She had also encountered discrimination in her efforts to get summer jobs, having been denied a trainee position on a British newspaper because she was in a wheelchair.

Miss Hill said she decided to start a movement for black disabled people because of the "combination of discrimination'' they were up against. She said the political and social pressure group had had successes.

However, the British Parliament was reluctant to go ahead and introduce anti-discrimination laws because they felt it would be too expensive.

"But these kind of laws have been enacted in the US and Canada,'' she noted.

"So we will keep pushing.'' The Bermuda Government, ahead of its parent country, recently amended the Human Rights Act to include laws prohibiting employers from denying jobs to people because they have a disability.

Miss Hill, in her 30s, has been in a wheelchair for more than 20 years as a result of spinal injury when she was a child.

She plans to return to Bermuda, where her family lives, to practice law. PHOTO Miss Mildrette Hill.