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Report from the 4th Conference of Croatian Self-Advocates

Lagano za čitanje

Dodano: 13.10.2014

4th Conference of Croatian self-advocates was held at the hotel Dubrovnik at 10 and 11 October 2014 in Zagreb. Name of the Conference was Living independently and being included in the community: Respect us and be our support!
More than 120 participants attended the Conference. Most of them were self-advocates and assistants from a network of Croatian self-advocates.
At the Conference self-advocates were adressed by Vesna Škulić, the President Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Iva Prpić, representative of the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth, Assistant Minister for the implementation of social policy, organization and supervision of institutions,
Tatjana Dalić, Deputy Minister of Labour and Pension System, Mirjana Zećirević Assistant of Director of Croatian Employment Service for the labor market and employment policies and Branka Meić, Advisor of Ombudswoman for Persons with Disabilities.
We are very pleased because guests from rehabilitation centers Ozalj, Zagreb and Stančić attended the Conference, and also guests from the Macedonian organization Solem and Slovenian organization Skupaj zmoremo.
On the first day of the Conference, self-advocates held speeches in which they shared their experiences and hopes related to community life and work.
Also, we held presentation video stories of self-advocates that are made within the project Using New Media to Advocate for Our Rights, funded by the Open Society Foundation.
The weak point of the conference was that, this year as well almost all politicians and decision-makers went immediately after their welcoming speeches and they have not heard self-advocates speeches.
Self-advocates were very disappointed because they did not have the opportunity to ask questions that they have spent months preparing. In the final part of the conference one self-advocate raised the issue is there any point in calling on politicians to our future conferences?
However there were different examples. We wish to highlight the Office of the Ombudswoman for Persons with Disabilities which representative remained until the end of the first part of the Conference and sought to answer all of the questions that self-advocates had.
On the second day of the Conference annual General Assembly Association for Self Advocacy (ASA) was held.
At the general meeting self-advocates had the opportunity to discuss the following documents: Report on the work of the association in 2013 and 2014 submitted by the ASA’s Executive Director Damian Janjušević The financial report of the association for the year 2013 submitted by the ASA’s accountant Predrag Miščević The Work Plan for 2014 and 2015 submitted by the member of the Board Domagoj Modrušan
After the discussion and adoption of certain modifications, members of the Assembly have adopted all presented documents.
After a meeting we held 4 parallel workshops: Partnerships and relationships Safety on the Internet Assistants, privacy, personal freedom What Living independently and being included in the community means to us
At the end of the Conference, self-advocates have presented conclusions from all workshops.
We thank all participants and guests, especially the volunteers, which helped us in maintaining the conference. We hope that we will see each other next year in even greater number.
The conference was held as part of the Expansion of the network self-advocacy in Croatia project, which was supported by the Open Society Foundations.