A WOMAN who invented a device to help amateur photographers take professional-looking portraits is one of a group of disabled businessmen and women who are putting Burnley on the economic map.

Brenda Kean's camera-flash diffuser - which helps prevent red eyes in photographs - is one of the success stories of the East Lancs into Employment (ELIE) scheme, an innovative and revolutionary project which has won admiration all over the world.

Based on Cavour Street, Burnley, and partly funded by the urban regeneration challenge fund, ELIE has helped 60 disabled-people's businesses to get off the ground in six years.

Other successes include the Rockenbay Song and Dance Company, run by Mark Whitehead and Paul Marks, who visit schools across Britain to record children performing songs and poetry and then sell the tapes to parents.

Arts graduate Joanne Bancroft has also turned her talents into a thriving business. Her pottery designs, including one on a theme of Pendle Hill, are on sale in the Prince's Trust shop in Chelsea.

Project worker Jean Weaver told the Citizen: "We have never turned anyone away. We believe that everybody has the right to have a go at running their own business. ELIE includes people with blindness, hearing impairments, injuries, epilepsy and diabetes."

Brenda, who suffers from a long-standing back injury, said: "One day I hope to be successful enough to employ other disabled people."

Jean Weaver added: "The challenge fund grant of £40,000 made all the difference to us."

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