TL;DR
We are building something real, and we need your help. Donations, funding partnerships, visibility, or simple shares can all make a difference.
Our Kickstarter is now live. We are raising funds for:
- First-run production of ethical Cùran™ plush toys, badges, and storybooks
- Festival presence and training pilots
- Development of a safeguarding alert system and CPD-accredited training
This is a campaign for real-world change. And you can be part of it. Whether you sponsor a digital brick for £5 or pledge £250 to be part of our travelling Founder Wall, every single pledge helps build the world we’re trying to create.
We are not a passive charity. We are a catalyst for change.
Full Version
This is more than a campaign. This is how we start building a future that didn’t exist until we named it.
We are The Unseen Barriers Foundation. A proudly disabled-led, trauma-informed organisation founded in Scotland and built to go global. Our mission is simple, to name, challenge and dismantle the invisible forms of exclusion that stop people from showing up.
The idea was born from a simple but devastating realisation. People are missing out on support, community, even life itself, not because the services don’t exist, but because the experience of trying to reach them is unbearable. Shame, fear of being disbelieved, sensory overwhelm, exhaustion from masking or explaining. These are not unfortunate side-effects of marginalisation. They are access barriers. And no one was naming them. Until now.
Our founder, Shaun Gray, began researching this issue during postgraduate study. That research evolved into The Unseen Barriers Framework, a groundbreaking new tool that identifies four key types of distress-based exclusion: Scent Distress, Communication Management Distress, Cognitive Layering Distress, and Perception-Based Distress. These are not metaphors. They are lived realities that derail appointments, fracture systems, and trap people in cycles of harm.
But a framework on its own doesn’t change anything. It had to be lived, embodied, shared. So we created The Unseen Barriers Foundation to do exactly that. To take this model out of the academic world and put it into real-world action. Through training, storytelling, policy advocacy, children’s education, and peer-led campaigns.
At the heart of all of this is Cùran.
Cùran is our mascot. A plush green dragon born not from fantasy, but from the unmet needs of real people. A comfort object, a conversation starter, a character children and adults can trust. Cùran wears a black hoodie that says Unseen Barriers, because they live with them too. Their name doesn’t mean anything in Gaelic, but we realised that’s exactly what made it right. If no one else had named these barriers, then why stop there? We gave Cùran a name of our own. From now on, Cùran means Little Warrior or Little Champion, even if only to us. Because if you're going to take on the world, you need something that’s yours.
This Kickstarter is how we begin.
We are raising funds to produce our first plush run of Cùran, along with our first set of badge tiers, pay-it-forward plushies, memorial tags, founder wall bricks and supporter tees. We have no corporate backing, no paid staff, and no pre-built audience. What we do have is authenticity, originality, and a message that has already begun to resonate across disabled communities, festivals, mental health networks and support services.
We want to create something that is as emotionally intelligent as it is practical. Something that meets people where they are. Something that doesn’t rely on perfectly filled forms, or the ability to explain your trauma to a stranger, or the stamina to chase a system that failed you before.
Cùran doesn’t ask. They see.
And this is your chance to help us put them in the world.
Whether you back us with £5 or £250, your support adds another brick to the wall, another voice to the story, another reason for someone to believe they aren’t broken. They are simply distressed. And there is language for that now.