Achieving Inclusion, Washington (25-27 October 2012)

People with disabilities have the right to live independently and be included in the community. Inclusion International is a world organisation working for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities. They prepare a world conference on 25-27 October 2012 in Washington. There, they will talk about how people with disabilities can live independently and be included in the community.

Achieving Inclusion is a Global Conference organised by Inclusion International and its US member, the Arc.

The aim of the conference is to discuss the implication of Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Living independently and being included in the community. It will take place at Washington DC on 25-27 October 2012.

The conference is set as a culmination to the biennial campaign promoting Article 19 of the Convention. The campaign is organised by Inclusion International to investigate how Article 19 is interpreted in different parts of the world, to discover what living independently and being included in the community really means and what can be done to achieve these goals.

Inclusion International intends to present the results of the campaign by launching a global report during the conference in October. They are inviting self-advocates, families and organisations all over the world to contribute to their findings. In order to allow this participation, Inclusion International has assembled different methodologies through which stakeholders can share their experiences and stories.

The tools used to gather information are as follows:

• Gathering of stories, pictures and videos depicting life of people with disabilities and their family

• Conducting focus groups

• Undertaking country surveys

• Running pilot initiatives in different regions of the world to help the implementation of Article 19

• Researching different resources such as articles and scientific studies

These tools will help answer the following questions, which are at the heart of the campaign and will be addressed in the Global Report:

• What does it mean to live and being included in the community for people who have an intellectual disability and their families, and what is their vision of this?

• What exists now, and how is it compared to our vision?

• What needs to happen to achieve our vision?

To learn more about the campaign, visit Inclusion International’s website. More information about the conference will be soon available there.

Inclusion Europe supports the campaign promoting Article 19. If you want to know more, please click here