Handicap International Luxembourg “For a better consideration of persons with disabilities in international solidarity actions: which institutional and associative support from the north?”
Handicap International Luxembourg hosted an event titled “For a better consideration of persons with disabilities in international solidarity actions: which institutional and associative support from the North?” on 24 October 2012. The event was a workshop roundtable that was planned in part by our close collaboration with Info-Handicap.
Info-Handicap represents the National Council of Persons with Disabilities in Luxembourg, and the event was held on their premise. Nine NGO’s and eight DPO’s were represented at the event. Mrs. Marie-Josée Jacobs represented the Ministry of Cooperation and provided an update on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Luxembourg. Mr Silvio Sagramola, Info-Handicap director, presented a session on “Accessibility for All, as an essential factor for inclusion,” complemented with HI technical advisor Mr Hugues Nouvellet’s presentation of a studycase: “an example of support to the accessibility of schools in Algeria, according to an Inclusive Local Development approach,” with participation of local civil society. Mrs Priscille Geiser, HI technical advisor, presented a session on the various aspects of the support to DPOs advocacy in developing countries. Mr Lelenta, president of the Disabled Lawyers Association of Mali,introduced the situation of persons with disabilities in his country, and the advocacy activities conducted by Malian DPOs.
Participants of the event later split into sub-groupsto collaborate and make recommendations regarding the development of concrete exchanges and increased information sharing between stakeholders of NGO’s and DPO’s from the South and the North. Luxembourg’s Ministry of Cooperation’s strategy regarding the mainstreaming of disability in development policies was shared with the event participants. The minister of Cooperation accepted the idea of a working group on the elaboration of a draft of these guidelines. The working group’s objective is to produce a draft to be presented to the“Assises Luxembourgeoises de la Coopération” in September 2013.
Luxembourg NGOs are aware of the thematic “disability and development” and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They are more willing to take into account persons with disabilities in their upcoming projects, and wish to increase their knowledge and level of understanding on the disability issue in general along with the specific difficulties faced by persons with disabilities in developing countries. Luxembourg DPOs are more concerned by the thematic of disability in the South and want to increase their knowledge and level of understanding of the situation and contexts of developing countries, and on the situation of persons with disabilities in these countries. Overall, all organizations involved showed interest in building a working-group and long term contributions, to the design of guidelines and to a policy-paper on disability as part of the strategy and orientations documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Source Article from Humanity & Inclusion
