Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences
A Dialogue: Survivors in a disabling environment: what does empowerment of disabled women mean globally?
Venue CCUN Chapel 12.30-2pm (ground floor) Enter by the far door not the side with elevators. The shape of the room (chapel) might prove a challenge for a formal set up.
This panel will be discussing what would empowerment of disabled women mean locally, nationally and globally. We will try to include voices of disabled women (short video clips) from different parts of the world stating what it means to them if its possible with the venue. We will post the clips online for later viewing if not. We will use the Social Model of Disability; that is to say it is systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently), that disable us. We will also look at the different nuances of violence against disabled women, the different forms of abuse and how disabled women in particular are affected. How they survive inspite of having to face numerous challenges/barriers wherever they are in the world.
Speakers
Alexia Manombe-Ncube (Naimbia)
Alexia is the Deputy Minister of Disability Affairs in the office of Vice President, Namibia. Recently appointed by President Hage Geingob to handle the affairs of physically challenged people, Manombe-Ncube has appealed to stakeholders to highlight the plight of the country’s disabled people in order for her to realise her ministerial declaration of intent. She also urged stakeholders to apply all their energy towards the empowerment and development of the disabled and specifically to close the gender equality gap.
She champions those in the rural areas saying disabled are have less resources and left to crawl because they do not have wheelchairs like people in the cities. Alexia will be speaking on the status of disabled in Naimbia and her own empowerment as a minister.
Lucia Bellini (UK)
Lucia currently works as an advocate for disabled people who are victims of domestic violence. She is also a Disability Rights Advocate where she assists people to access care packages, to be re-housed, to apply for benefits and to appeal against decisions they are not happy with. She has a masters in Global Citizenship, Identity and Human Rights from the University of Nottingham. In 2008 to 2010, she worked with disabled people’s organisations in Guyana where she provided disability equality and project management training to many disabled people throughout the country. She is particularly passionate about ensuring disabled women feel empowered and equipped to make their own choices. Lucia will be speaking about disabled women caught up in domestic violence in the UK.
Michelle Baharier (UK)
Michelle (UK) is a visual artist and disabled activist with lived experience of mental-distress for over three decades. She set up and ran a disabled lead arts organisation changing the way disabled people were perceived in the main stream.
She has worked with women’s organisations and on a telephone help line for women affected by violence, and with women from a variety of cultures including the Poppy Project which supports women who have been trafficked to the UK, the Diane project for Iranian women who need a safe place to be due to violence. Michelle will speak about her work with mental health survivors and their struggle for empowerment.
Suzannah Phillips (USA)
Suzannah is the Legal Advisor for Women Enabled International. Her work focuses on legal advocacy with the United Nations and other international and regional forums to strengthen human rights standards on the rights of women and girls with disabilities. Prior to joining WEI, Suzannah was the International Women’s Human Rights Clinical Fellow at CUNY School of Law, Legal Adviser for International Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and a Human Rights Fellow with VIVO POSITIVO in Santiago, Chile. She is currently a member of the International Human Rights Committee at the New York City Bar Association. Suzannah received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her B.A. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University. Suzannah will be speaking on how different legal instruments can be used to support empowerment of disabled women especially with Women Enabled International’s work.
Eleanor Lisney (UK)
Eleanor is born Malaysian Chinese of immigrant parents who moved to UK herself for graduate study. She is a founding member of Sisters of Frida will facilitate the meeting.
We will have time to discuss some action points that could lead us to unite across the world in solidarity and in sisterhood.
https://www.sisofrida.org/ email hello@sisofrida.org @sisofrida
[…] At A Dialogue: Survivors in a disabling environment: what does empowerment of disabled women mean globa… […]
[…] I have been involved in the National Association of Women’s Organisations (NAWO) for the past two years and am a core member of the UK CSW Alliance for Sisters of Frida. As an activist for gender and disability equality, I realise the impact and importance of the UN instruments in telling the state parties, and in particular, our own government of the treaties they have signed and to remind them of the legal and moral obligations. This might seem to be a quixotic task but it is evident that if we are not visible at those international spaces, our voices and concerns will definitely not be heard. Our government can also continue its façade of fulfilling its duties and pontificate about its role in global leadership where gender equality is concerned. As a disabled woman activist, the two themes of empowerment and domestic violence are of particular importance. I was asked to be in a side event on disabled women and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by Enabled Women International to speak on the first goal – poverty, and in particular the role of the UK government and the impact on disabled women of government program cuts. And since we will be there we organized our own side event, ‘Survivors in a disabling environment, what does empowerment of disabled women mean globally’? […]