People with intellectual disabilities and their families face discrimination, they are impacted on their rights and their life. The Danish organization for persons with intellectual disabilities, LEV, and the Nordic sister organizations in Inclusion Nordic recently held a 3-day meeting, exchanging knowledge and experience on creating change for persons for intellectual disabilities. Gaining new perspectives, ideas, and useful knowledge for the future work. One of the speakers were Sif Holst, who talked about what international work Disabled People’s Organisations Denmark is doing on behalf of LEV and its other members, on a Nordic, European and International level.
Sif Holst spoke about gathering data, bringing attention to the every-day challenges and discrimination experienced by persons with a disability and on working with for example the EU Disability Strategy and the UN CRPD. The implementation of the CRPD, how the work is ongoing is a key to creating change and who we elect to the CRPD Committee is also a part of securing the needed focus, securing the vision of the needed change.
Another important topic of the discussion was the recent UNDP report on the political participation of persons with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities, which holds many important points on how to secure elections accessible for all, including securing a base-line determining the present situation and a better understanding of the challenges we face.
Link to the report
Easy-read publication on voting and political participation.
