Center for Independent Living Serbia OSI is organizing Regional conference on independent living on 22/23^rd of December 2011, in Belgrade, Holiday Inn hotel.

The aim of the conference is further enticement of independent living movement for people with disabilities in the region and this will also be the opportunity to mark the passing of the new Law on Social Protection, which will provide personal assistance as a social support necessary for independent living of persons with disabilities for the first time in our country. There will be participants from Serbia, Bosnian Federation, Republic Srpska, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Institutions and people, contributed to this development, will receive a small acknowledgement for their work in this field and participants will recall the development of the movement for independent living in Serbia and its impact on the development of policies for persons with disabilities,

The conference is funded by European Network on Independent Living – ENIL and also supported by TACSO Office (Technical Assistance to NGOs) in Serbia.

Center for Independent Living of Persons with Disabilities of Serbia in partnership with the Office of the Commissioner for the protection of equality of citizens conducted a series of panel discussions easier to exercise their rights, within the project funded by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.

Debate will be held in Belgrade on 13^th of  December 2011, from 1 a.m. till 4 p.m. in the Hall court at the Faculty of Law.

The meeting will address Ms. Nevena Petrusic, Commissioner for the protection of equality of citizens, Mimica Živadinović Project Coordinator and host of the Law School professor Branko Rakic.

This is CIL contribution to empowerment of people with disabilities and their organizations to recognize discrimination and gain knowledge on how to use different mechanisms and bodies to achieve the rights and protection from discrimination which is still not adequate.

In this way we expand the knowledge about the role of the Commissioner for the protection of

“Art does not exist only to entertain but also to challenge one to think, toprovoke, even to disturb, to engage in a constant search for the truth.”~ Barbra Streisand

All forms of art – drama, music, visual art, poetry, film, photography, and dance – stimulate connections between people. They are forms of expression often used to promote social change and to stand up for human rights. Art communicates across boundaries of geography, politics, gender, and race.Human rights too, cross all divides and belong to every individual on the planet. Simply put, art reflects us – we experience art together. It makes us feel human, and moves us to protect the human rights of others.In the classroom, the arts provide an invaluable tool through which teachers can attempt to address sensitive and challenging human rights issues.

As one human rights educator stated:

“…Arts by their very nature are viewed as tools for change, the development of consciousness and as mobilization for actions. All of this applies so well to the understanding of human rights and the skills needed to enforce and empower students to take action. Everything students read, enact, create, showcase, write or perform ties to human rights exploration. We have had great success usingtheatre, music, dance and writing to allow students to give voice to human rights issues, in this country, other countries and even within school cultures. It is this direct link and exploration that drives artists of all ages – and affects change.” ~ Sandy Borren Barrett, Associate Artistic Director, Stages Theatre, Hopkins, MN

Human rights themes and art can connect in the classroom in many ways. Here a just a few examples:

Diversity

Human Rights provide both the opportunity to affirm the value of human diversity and identify a threat to cultural identities where languages and cultural traditions are disappearing. Artistic forms and styles can be used to reassertidentities. For example, people transported as slaves to the Americas were forced to repress their cultural traditions. Despite this, song and storytelling were developed as a means of resistance; and blues, gospel and jazz helped to shapeAfrican-American identity. Today, many African musicians use rap and hip-hop as an expression of defiance, protest and social conscience.

Activism

Just as the arts can be used as propaganda, it can also act as a social conscience where rights and freedom are under threat. Satirical songs, drama and cartoons are all ways in which artists highlight hypocrisy and abuse of power.Cultural and artistic freedoms have even been written into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Positive social change

The arts often reflect the status quo but can also point to change and new possibilities. Art with a political or social message can be a powerful force for those challenging injustice. It can also symbolize aspirations for an alternativefuture. As teachers, we have the power to affect change in many ways.Packed full of lesson plans, activities, ideas, resources, and websites all dedicated to transforming learning in and through the arts, this Arts edition of Rights Sites News is designed to help teachers use the power of art to advance, protect, and celebrate human rights in their classroom. As Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”

While the region has made significant progress over recent years, it is at risk from the effects of a further global slowdown and needs to adopt policies that support stability and longer term growth   

SARAJEVO, November 15, 2011 – While a global slowdown and recent turbulence in the Euro zone (EZ) have shaken economies of the six countries in South East Europe (SEE6)[1], their deeper integration with the European Union (EU) remains the best long term prospect for their growth, according to the new World Bank “South East Europe Regular Economic Report” (SEE RER), released today.

This is the first of a series of regular reports which will come out semi-annually.   “Our projections are for the growth in this region of 2.5 percent in 2011 and 2.1 percent in 2012,” says Ron Hood, Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit in the Europe and Central Asia region and lead author of the report. “However, even these modest growth projections assume that the Eurozone crisis is solved in an orderly manner. Should the crisis worsen, economic growth in these countries could be much worse.”  The effects of a further global slowdown and the prolonged uncertainties around the Eurozone crisis will influence SEE6 economies through trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign banks, and remittances, according to the report.  

All these transmission channels would be affected by deeper economic and financial tensions in the EU and the Eurozone.  Trade with the EU is a key driver of exports and overall economic growth for SEE6 countries, amounting to between 30 percent and almost half of their GDP. In 2010, 58.2 percent of total SEE6 exports were to the EU, with the lion’s share going to Italy and Germany. After a drop by 14.7 percent in 2009, exports marked a robust growth by 20 percent in 2010, peaked at 29.7 percent in the first quarter of 2011 year on year, and have subsequently slowed. Imports have a similar dynamics but with a deeper decline in 2009 and a more muted recovery. As a consequence, both the trade balance and the current account deficit (CAD) for the region improved by about 10 percentage points in 2010 compared to 2008. However, despite recent improvements CADs still remain high, particularly in Montenegro and Kosovo, says the report. 

Beyond trade, EU investors are also the largest aggregate provider of FDI to the region, with net inflows worth over 2 percent of the Western Balkans GDP. Likewise, Eurozone countries represent a significant source of remittances to all the SEE6 countries, particularly for Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. The presence of foreign banks creates another channel of potential influence. The share of foreign banks in the total assets of the region’s banking system stands at around 89 percent. “Whereas overall banking systems in SEE6 countries appear resilient, with high liquidity and significant capital buffers, existing credit and funding risks are being magnified in the region, driven primarily by adverse developments in the EU, an overhang of non-performing loans from banks in many SEE6 countries, and slowing economic growth,” warns Hood.

“Almost all foreign banks in SEE6 are from EU countries, with a comparatively high share of Greek and Italian owned banks. Further stress on their respective parent banks could potentially create another credit crunch in the region.” Hood emphasizes that, “Financing is likely to be a constraint going forward. External debt has grown and a decline in SEE6 growth may cut government revenues, raising pressures on public finance.”  The report recommends that authorities in SEE6 countries pursue fiscal prudence, rebuild fiscal buffers, and be prepared for further expenditure consolidation. Unfortunately, the fiscal performance has deteriorated in all countries since 2008, and few countries in the region still have room to accommodate a worsening of the crisis through allowing automatic stabilizers to operate. With the exception of Kosovo, no country has sizable deposits to draw down. Thus several countries should accelerate fiscal consolidation, with pensions and wage bills being important areas of focus, says the report. While immediate financing needs of fiscal deficits appear to have been secured, longer term prospects will remain difficult, warns the SEE RER.

The sharp rise of gross external and government debt to GDP between 2008 and 2010 is mainly attributed to government borrowing aimed at financing fiscal deficits used to smooth out crisis effects. The SEE6 group is heterogeneous regarding the level of external debt, with the total debt in Montenegro and Serbia above the regional average, while Albania has the biggest public debt as a percentage of GDP. Improving employment opportunities remains another major long term challenge for the SEE6, concludes the report. The high level of unemployment among youth and the low participation of women is a striking feature of the SEE6 labor market. Moreover, much of the unemployment is long term and several countries have aging populations. “Future growth will need to be driven more by investment and improvements in productivity that enhance competitiveness and productive capacity, rather than by the externally financed consumption and investment in real estate and other bubble assets,” says Jane Armitage, World Bank Country Director and Regional Coordinator for South East Europe.

“Countries in South East Europe need to address longstanding structural reform challenges. This will allow them to take better advantage of the access to markets, inflows of foreign direct investment, bank finance, and remittances that closer integration with the EU offers.” The special feature of the report is the focus on education, and on Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation.

[1] SEE6 are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.  

by Charles O’Mahony on September 5, 2011

We are delighted to welcome this guest post from Noelin Fox.  Noelin is a Ph.D candidate in the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, NUI Galway.  Her research examines the right to independent living provided for in Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of with Disabilities.  Noelin has worked for many years in intellectual disability services’ in Ireland.

This month, my daughter, like thousands of her peers across the country, is moving away from home for the first time.  She is 18 years old and is taking up her place in college, embarking on her journey to independence.  Over the coming months she will have to learn a whole array of new skills which she has no previous experience of.  She will have to manage her (limited) budget, feed herself properly, learn to live with people who are not her immediate family, manage the academic work she is assigned, deal with the bank, figure out bus time-tables, forge new friendships and a whole array of other tasks.  In the process she may well make mistakes.  She may submit work late for college, spend too much money on going out leaving herself short at the end of the week, get involved in unwise relationships, among many things.  Hopefully she will learn from such mistakes and manage better the next time.  Throughout this process she will have plenty of support – from us her parents, from the school-friends she is living with and from new friends – and if she gets her heart broken or bruised we will take care of her until she heals and help to her move on.  The college too is well attuned to the needs of in-coming first years – it has good structures in place to ease them into college life and help ensure they progress through their first encounters with third level academic studies.

How different all this would all be if she had a disability, especially if she had an intellectual disability.  Would she be leaving home at all at this stage of her life at all?  Probably not – and there are many reasons why this is so.  On a practical level she may not be allowed to open a bank account or sign a lease for her accommodation.  If she were deemed by a medical doctor to be unable to manage her money, any disability benefits she received would probably be paid directly to us.

And where would she go anyway?  There are so few mainstream third level education options open to people with intellectual disability.  Third level colleges may have disability support services for students, but gaining access to the regular courses is a problem and there are few courses designed to meet the needs of people with intellectual disability in this sector.

On another level we may feel that she would be safer at home, worried that she would not be able to cope with life without our immediate support and guidance – would she be vulnerable to being exploited, would she be able to manage getting the bus, would she get involved in inappropriate relationships, would she manage her course work?  And if she needed support at home where would this come from and how would it be paid for?

Our systems and structures are designed to support my daughter’s progress from home to college and on to employment.  The pathways are clear and open.  It is assumed by her family, her schools and her community that she will learn the skills she needs to progress through the systems and become a fully-fledged independent adult.  These positive assumptions about her abilities are built into and supported by our structures and systems.  For people with intellectual disability the opposite is the case.  Quite apart from the worries of parents’ about the ability of their disabled sons or daughters to manage life independently, the lack of clear pathways is an enormous obstacle.  For young adults with intellectual disabilities the most likely route after school is some form of training or day services provided by a disability service provider and funded by the health services – not education.   Although FAS funds some training programmes for people with disabilities, the vast bulk of day services and training for people with intellectual disability is funded from the health budget.  So, while our educational obligations to most young adults continues into their twenties, it seems to end at eighteen for those with intellectual disability.  This means that if a young adult with intellectual disability does not want to attend a specialist (and in effect a segregated) post-school education or training programme, she will in general have to forge a path largely unassisted by our state systems – which in the main only provides recognized pathways to specialist/segregated services for her.  There are some notable exceptions such as the Certificate course in Contemporary Living offered by TCD and the new ‘Going to College’ pilot scheme starting this Autumn in NUIG.  But the point is that these are the exceptions and third level colleges are only just beginning to develop options for people with intellectual disability.

Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities asserts the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community with choices equal to others, and to be fully included and participate in the community.  People with intellectual disability, just like everyone else, must learn the skills they need to achieve this successfully, and have the opportunity to develop their own relationships with others, independent of family.  This will mean that they, just like everyone else, probably will make mistakes along the way and hopefully they will learn from their mistakes.  Many of us, however, disabled or not, never learn from our mistakes and may in fact end up repeating the same mistakes over and over again – how many people, for example do we know who repeatedly make poor decisions about relationships.  Family or friends may offer advice when this happens, but we do not and cannot stop them, nor should we unless they break the law.  Yet if a person with intellectual disability makes a mistake she probably won’t be allowed to make it again, and indeed it is more likely still that she will never be provided the opportunity to make the mistake in the first place.  This will probably be framed as protecting her, but it has the consequence of stopping her from learning what she needs to learn in order to get on with her life.  How else will she learn if she is protected and segregated from real life in the community?  To become adults in charge of our lives we all need the chance to learn from experience, and to learn the skills we need we all have to given our independence and the chance to live in communities.

Making real the right to independent living and community inclusion means:

1.                  Ensuring that our legislation – and particularly our new legal capacity legislation – makes positive assumptions about people’s abilities and supports people in their decision-making where this is needed.

2.                  Ensuring that our policies, structures and practices are truly open to all citizens, including people with intellectual disability, and that any barriers currently blocking people’s path to independence are eliminated.

3.                  Developing recognized and accessible pathways to independence for people with intellectual disability, which are not separate from those of their peers.

4.                  Using our resources to support people in living their lives as part of the community so that they too can make their way in life as they see fit.

A sea-change in attitude is needed , away from paternalism and protection – which has served people badly – to inclusiveness and expectation.  We always assumed that our daughter would leave home for college.  For her, this time of her life is full of excitement, challenge and expectation.  For us, of course, it is a little sad and not a little costly!  But we are delighted for her and would never attempt to stop her going.  It should not be so different for the many young adults with intellectual disability at the same stage as her, and their parents.  There is a great injustice in this and it is something we can change – it is not so difficult but it does require some determination to change on all our parts.

CIL Serbia presented yesterday the results of the project Mainstreaming
Inclusiveness for Disabled Workers and Youth.

Participants at II Module on Quality standards in service providing.

In two days seminar, 23/24 September 2011, the main topics related to standards of services in social protection. CIL Serbia has its representative on this seminar.

CIL participants at Freedom Drive, Strasbourg, September 12/16 2011.

European network of Centers for independent living – ENIL – still has Serbian representative in Executive Committee. After the mandate of Gordana Rajkov and following the appointment from Serbian delegation new EC member will be Milica Mima Ruzicic Novkovic – congratulations!!

Center for Independent Living Serbia OSI at the Serbia-EU Forum

The first Forum “Overcoming the crisis, the path towards the European Union” has held in Belgrade on 9 September 2011. Forum was opened by Serbian President Boris Tadic and President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy. Forum Serbia-EU was very important political event which was attended by senior officials of Serbia, the European Union and Western Balkan region, economic and political leaders, representatives of academic networks and NGOs.

Participation of representatives of the Centre as the only organization with disabilities in such a prestigious and important political, international conference, is also a recognition of the Centre work as an organization, but also the recognition of disability as an important political issue that can not be bypassed in discussions on human rights issues and joining the European Union.

FREEDOM DRIVE 2011 DEMANDS 

1. Independent living central in all relevant EU policies: ENIL calls on the European Union to continue the process of shifting the disability paradigmfrom care and welfare to human rights issues, and to ensure that IndependentLiving as a human rights issue is central in all relevant policies of the European Union. This demand is required by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, concluded by the EU in 2010. ENIL calls for the European Parliament to require the European Commission to develop and distribute guidelines for disability policy based on the ENIL definitions of Independent Living, Personal Assistance, Universal Community Based Services and De-Institutionalisation. 

2. Respecting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons withDisabilities: ENIL calls for the immediate shift in interpreting the EU law andpolicy in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.The Convention provisions on Non-discrimination, Accessibility, the Right toLive in the Community and Personal Mobility must become the minimumbenchmark applied by the EU and its agents in all legislative and policyinitiatives.

3. Inclusion of people with disabilities: ENIL calls for full inclusion of disabled people through the application of the CRPD principle of Universal Design and therewith the abandonment of special solutions in all areas includingeducation, transport, housing, public services and employment. Specialsolutions lead to segregation. 

4. De-institutionalisation – closure of institutions by 2020: ENIL calls for the European Union to continue to assist the development of universal community based services to achieve de-institutionalization across Europe before 2020. This through the stipulation of independent living in the EU budget andStructural Funds and with the ear-marking of funding for independent living.No European funding should go into the support of traditional or institutionalforms of living for disabled people. If funding is spent in such a way, sanctionsmust be applied. 

5. Personal Assistance for all in need: ENIL calls for the implementation of our human right to personal assistance for Independent Living in all EU memberstates. The lack of personal assistance constitutes the violation of basichuman rights of disabled people. 

6. Freedom of movement: ENIL calls for the opportunity to equally enjoy theright to freedom of movement with the portability of personal assistanceservices. ENIL calls for the adoption of the EU Mobility Act. 

7. Independent Living in International Development Programs: ENIL calls for an earmarking of 5% of EU development funding to go to the development of Independent Living programs in developing countries. 

8. Full ratification and implementation of the UN CRPD: ENIL calls on the EU to sign and ratify the optional protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and for the European Union to call on its member states for full ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and of the Optional Protocol. 

9. Disabled People’s Organisations in policy-making: ENIL reminds theEuropean Union that it is required under Article 4(3) of the UN Convention onthe Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to actively involve the organisations ofdisabled people and Independent Living organisations at all levels of disabilitypolicy-making including planning, producing and implementation.   

NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US!

DPI Europe Assembly & the Seminar on the Experiences in Monitoring of Implementation of CRPD will be held on 2 – 4 September 2011 in Hungary.  

The topic of the Seminar will be to reveal at what stage is the implementation of the CRPD in the member countries, how CRPD monitoring systems has been functioning, what independent mechanisms have been established, if there is a disability ombudsman to support people who suffered violations. In all: what has been achieved so far.  

Topic of the General Assembly will be – among others – to finalise and adoption of the new Constitution of DPI Europe, as well as participation at DPI’s 8th World Assembly to take place in Durban, South Africa on 10-13 October 2011.