More information
Description
Policies for people with disabilities have changed fast over the last year but not fundamentally. A visible change in the life of people with disabilities will depend mainly on the individual initiative of each of them: having resources for personal assistance, available housing and personal mobility does not mean that access to resources will be easier, a little bit less automatic. The latter context requires changing, adapting and boosting the capacity of advocacy of civil society organizations to provide efficient support to people with disabilities in their effort to get access to these resources. This project aims at boosting the knowledge and skills of the organization’s team to consult and empower people with disabilities by focusing on the Personal Assistance Act to start with. The training sessions of the team of advocates across the country will boost the capacity of the organization to help people with disabilities when they apply for personal assistance, hire and use a personal assistant/s. Updating the website www.lichna-pomosht.org created 10 years ago by adding new sections and materials as well as a channel for ongoing counselling of people with disabilities will contribute to empowering them quickly and efficiently to manage their personal assistance. Our direct target group is the team of advocates from Centre for Independent Living and end users will be people with disabilities who will have the right to benefit from the Personal Assistance Act (more than 80 000 people at present).
Summary of project results
The project aimed at developing knowledge and skills of the CIL team members to provide counselling and empower disabled people focusing on the recently-adopted Personal Assistance Act. In order to achieve the expected results two training sessions were conducted and an update of the website – launched years ago – was done, where advocates could find relevant information about the law, as well as information materials to help them empower disabled people in need of personal assistance.
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis made it necessary to re-format the communication between the project participants – after the first training session held in a face-to-face format series of meetings were held in the Zoom platform – which did not affect negatively the anticipated results. Through the discussions on the Personal Assistance Act, the advocacy group agreed that it needed major changes, and its members pledged to participate in advocacy campaigns.
Prospects beyond the funding period:
Currently there is a strong group of 27 disabled people who have perfect understanding of personal assistance as a mechanism for empowerment of people in need of support; they know the provisions of the law to an extent that allows them to consult other disabled candidates for the service. Communication between the group members continues through weekly sessions in a group set-up – upon their own initiative – in Messenger, which is a clear manifestation of this project sustainability. Group discussions are now focused on the disability policies, different laws applicable to disabled people and the flaws in the legislation.
The organization has an updated website - www.lichna-pomosht.org.