Human Rights and Disability- ‘Whose Rights Are They Anyway?’

At Difference, we want to dismantle the barriers that exclude disabled people from participating. A rights-based approach seeks ways to respect, support and celebrate human diversity which means not only allowing, but supporting the full participation of disabled people. That also means addressing systemic injustices like poverty and lack of access to services and resources, which disproportionately impact upon disabled people’s lives, and especially in the North East.

As an organisation, we have been asking:

• How can we use our Human Rights to make social change for disabled people?
• How can we use rights-based approaches to make our work as impactful as it can be?
• How can we centre disabled people in approaches to Human Rights policy work that better respects and protects our rights?
• How can we make sure disabled people feel like we have ‘the right to talk about rights’?

Join us online via Zoom for a discussion on October 11th from 18:30- 19:30.

Difference will be joined by:

Sanchita Hosali (she/her) CEO of the British Institute of Human Rights

Sanchita is a recognised expert in human rights and equality law, policy and practice, with over twenty years of working both in the UK and internationally. Difference have worked with Sanchita, alongside Inclusion North and Learning Disability England on the ‘Stop People Dying Too Young’ Campaign. This campaign asked the Ministerial Oversight Group on Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation to involve people with lived experience in their work as equal members and to recognise the invaluable contribution they need to make to this work.

Watch Sanchita introduce herself here.

@sfhosali

Helen Flynn (she/her) Head of Policy, Research and Campaigns at Just Fair

Helen has over ten years’ experience researching and campaigning on behalf of NGOs, community groups and grassroots organisations towards the better realisation of human rights. Helen has a particular interest in the domestic implementation of international human rights standards and has worked to find ways to better facilitate access to UN monitoring mechanisms for those engaged in grassroots human rights work both in the UK and Latin America. Difference have worked with Helen on the Community Researchers Project which looked at ways that Difference, as grassroots campaigners, might learn about, challenge and use rights-based approaches in our work.

@JustFairUK

How to Join:

This event will take place via Zoom. We like to use Zoom as it has some great accessibility features. We will ask if you have any access needs when you register for a ticket. So that we can make the event as accessible as possible for you, please let us know as soon as possible if you have any other communication or access needs.

You will be sent a zoom link 2 days before the event. You will not be able to join the event via the Eventbrite page.

Please email richard@differencenortheast.org.uk or call me on 07498 317352 to discuss.