DISABLED People in Donegal are preparing to celebrate International Day of Disabled Persons with the launch of a Disabled Persons’ Organisation for the county.
The initial AGM of the Donegal Disabled Persons’ Organisation (DPO) will take place in Cara House, Letterkenny, from 1:30pm on Tuesday, December 2, the day before International Day of Disabled Persons.
Community Development worker for the Independent Living Movement Ireland, Pippa Black said, “The DPO is a democratic organisation of disabled people representing ourselves. We decided to time our AGM to celebrate the International Day of Disabled People on December 3.
The day was renamed in 2007 but the DPO are consciously reclaiming its first name in the same way that they consciously use identity first language. They describe themselves as disabled people. This is because they apply the social model of disability. They do not see themselves as being disabled by their impairments. Instead, they are disabled by barriers that are socially constructed. Sometimes those barriers are physical like stairs or lack of public seating, sometimes they are attitudinal like when other people decide what they are capable of.
“Under the UN Convention for the rights of disabled people, the State (including local authorities) must engage with disabled people through our representative organisations when implementing and monitoring our human rights or when making plans and policies that affect us.
The organisation is currently looking for new members who may have faced barriers due to impairments who live, work or play in Donegal.
They are reaching out to find disabled people, who are members of other marginalised groups, who likely face multiple levels of discrimination.
The organisation reminds people that membership is free.
The group operates based on their slogan ‘Nothing about us in Donegal without us’.
Anyone who would like to join Donegal DPO can email DPO4Donegal@gmail.com or call Pippa on 087 477 0965.
