Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

The national meeting of self-advocates was held in Novi Sad within the “Self-advocates for basic rights of persons with disabilities in Serbia” project. The meeting was organized in order to gather, support and empower self-advocacy groups from eight cities in Serbia, as well as to sensitize participants to the importance of creating networks of self-advocacy groups and connecting on the national level.

Serbian Association for Promoting Inclusion is implementing the project in cooperation with three partner organisations Centre for Society Organisation from Belgrade, Association for persons with mental disabilities from Niš, and the Association for Self-advocacy from Zagreb, with the support of the European Union.

The President of the Serbian Association for Promoting Inclusion, Dragomir Lukić highlighted that within the framework of Human Rights one of the most important is the one providing personal contribution and presence of persons with disabilities in all phases of the decision-making process, especially in the process of making decisions which particularly concern them.

“Self-advocacy is, in fact, a prevalent concept in Europe, and surely this represents the correct and high-quality attitude towards persons with disabilities,” said Dragomir Lukić while explaining that the concept promoted a high level of participation of persons with disabilities in making decisions which were important for their life.

He emphasized that the ultimate goal of the Project was the establishment of the self-advocacy association which would represent a legal entity where people with disabilities would protect their own rights with full contribution in order for them to be understood and placed in an equal position.

Source: rtv.rs