Hundreds of persons with disabilities came out to streets of Brussels. The event was organized by ENIL. Its representatives want officials and people responsible for decision-making in EU to know about barriers persons with disabilities face every day.
7th Freedom drive took place. This year it was held in the Belgian capital. Representatives of the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities (Sergey Drozdovsky) and Lawtrend (Elena Tonkacheva) took part in it.
Office for the rights of persons with disabilities is a member of ENIL and is the only Belarusian representative. The Office supports constant communication in the frames of the network distributing information from Belarus to Europe and vice versa.
According to Sergey Drozdovsky, the Office’s coordinator, participants of this international campaign (16 countries were presented this year) took part in the key events of the Freedom drive.
- This event of the civic society brings unique experience for Belarus. Videos and photos were made for Belarusian audience during the drive. A sitting of the drive’s participants in EU Commission became important for Belarusian participants. Sergey Drozdovsky says – there was an open discussion on the problems of independent living development and deinstitutionalization in the EU. It is very important for our country to participate in dialogue on this topic – we have launched a campaign on deinstitutionalization in Belarus aimed at improvement of possibilities of independent living of persons with disabilities in local communities. We have enough questions answers to which we can get during the dialogue.
Office’s partners from Lithuania took part in the international meeting. They are principal followers of deinstitutionalization idea and the idea of prohibition of segregation of people with mental disabilities.
