Disabled Peoples' International Europe

September 7 & 8, 2013: DPI Europe General Assembly

Valorize our life experiences

Wishing the best future to DPI Europe !The society has direct and indirect interest to learn from our life experiences, on how we make up with our restrictions, the various, specific and innovative development it supplies and the universally usable comfort it procures. This is with this conviction that the DPI Europe Members have adopted a Constitution to create a European registered NGO, not only to allow the European DPOs to find a space to express and affirm their abilities, but also to support personal development of People with Disabilities, to promote their equality and participation, whether with the development of peer support, by providing expertise in sciences and robotics, genetics, biotech….

Yet paradoxically, whether for the implementation of the International Convention that DPOs contributed to initiate and to build, or related to the expertise they have provided and continue to provide in the frame of the Action Plan of the European Commission 2010-2020, members of our organizations face increasingly difficulties to meet adapted and accessible supports to implement these goals. Most restricted, it is a fact that PwD must develop a wealth of imagination to put into words and deeds what they learned from their life experiences.

New Constitution Adopted !

Specifically, those who have an experience of the situations to solve have great difficulties to participate on an equal basis in actions financed from the budget lines they opened by pushing the government and institutions to legislate. This pithy sentence transcribed a reality that is more nuanced, but the fact is that institutions are better financed than organisations of citizens; they are strongest, best equipped and more powerful. They provide services and built solutions, but these solutions must meet our expectations and not to what others think of our needs, because our experiences say that there is often a big gap between provider’s assumptions and what we wait for. This happens when solutions are not built in close cooperation with users of the Independent Living Solutions.

Arguments for encouraging and supporting the participation of PwD do not mobilize funders, and many PwD feel a deep sense of injustice, not because providers and public Institutions succeed to mobilize funds and develop efficient services, but because many things play against them: We are objects of services that mobilize funds on our behalf, and a lot of charity raise private donations which objective not to give us a voice but to help us. In addition, to criticise supports is difficult and often perceived uncalled.

This is also why we have created a registered European NGO to strengthen the European network of DPI with the objectives to develop programs, researches and studies based on the living experiences of people, to elaborate and disseminate in all sectors, training and methodologies based on living experiences.

It is in this spirit that members of DPI Europe have opened discussion during their General Assembly in Strasbourg from 6 to 8 September: "With our own funds and our only will, we continue to create and act still animated by the same spirit of inclusive participation and citizenship, with the firm belief that even when it is more difficult, more expensive or laborious, there is no better way than to work and to build the future together. Our participation is a gift to the society, it is not an expense it is the cost of harmonious global development.

10 déc. 2013

Disabled Peoples' International - Europe

DPI Europe