User:BeBrayve

Ruth Richards-Hill (commonly tagged online as BeBrayve, Brayve or Be_Brayve) is a well known activist for civil rights particularly in the LGBT world. She is also outspoken about disability and work. Senior Officer for a digital agency - Brayve - well known for its angle in disability employment.

Born (April 1969) in Johannesburg, South Africa to Walter James Hill (1922 - 1995) and Maria Jacoba Johanna De Bruyn (nee' D'Alton) (b. 1933) she grew up in an environment of typical white privilege during Apartheid that belies her mother mixed race heritage.

Initially privately educated at McCauley House in Parktown Johannesburg, she went on to Settlers Agricultural High School near Bela Bela in the Northern Province. She later moved to RandPark High school north of Johannesburg where she completed her high school career.

She started her University career at UNISA and eventually completed it at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1993. She soent nine years in Israel.

She married Stuart Grant Leslie in February 1992. The relationship ended in 2003 after an acrimonious divorce. She subsequently married Charles Simon Peter Levine (b.1970) the relationship was ended in 2009, when she came out as gay.

Ruth was part of the poster couple in the campaign for marriage equality in Scotland. Together with her wife Jaye (nee' Richards) she became a familiar face in homes across Scotland during the campaign and when the campaign successfully brought equal marriage into Scottish law early in 2013.

Ruth later became a proponent for equal marriage in the Scottish Episcopal Church supporting controversial cleric Kelvin Holdsworth in his stance on inclusivity within the SEC. The church altered its canons to permit same sex marriage in church in 2016. An historic move as the first member if the Anglican communion in the UK to do so.

Ruth has suffered from refractory epilepsy for a large part of her life. She supports campaigns that fund support and research toward the illness. She also has a diagnosis of SLE, Systemic Lupus an autoimmune disorder that affects the bodies organs, skin and joints.

She campaigns for daily living support for the disabled arguing that more disabled could work if the system was designed to suit their needs rather than disabled people having to fit into a disjointed and badly constructed social welfare system.

Ruth uses voice activated software to type, making her successful in coding, copywriting and forming strategy within her line of business. She has forged a method of working for herself as a disabled person in an able world that few can match.

Ruth moved to Brecon, a small town in the Brecon Beacons in 2017, citing that as she gets older she finds the peace if the countryside far more enticing than the bright lights of the city.

Currently Ruth works from a small office in Brecon and travelling to Cardiff weekly. Her business has a Cape Town office and also services clients in the Middle East and Europe from a Dublin office base.