Recently I was in Norway at a
board meeting of the European Network on Independent Living. Usually our meetings are held using skype but
once a year we get together face-to-face. I took the opportunity to take part
in the annual Disability Freedom March in Oslo
that was organised by ULOBA, the Norwegian centre for independent living.
Let me tell you something
about ULOBA which really is quite and inspirational organisation. Not only does it support disabled people to
have personal assistants but is also active in disability issues nationally and
internationally. They have fully
accessible offices and have their own transport that they call their freedom
bus. It can seat 30 people including 12
wheelchair users. It goes everywhere including
to the biannual Freedom Drive
that takes place in Strasbourg,
France to lobby
members of the European Parliament. The
next one will be taking place in September 2013 so watch this space, we will be
telling you more about it nearer the time.
Over 1,000 disabled people
gathered together for the march. Given
that Norway
only has a population of 5m, mostly scattered in small communities, this was a
pretty good turnout. Everyone wore
bright green T shirts with the slogan ‘Proud, Strong and Visible’ emblazoned on
them. It was a great atmosphere with
most people shouting slogans in Norwegian and a few of us shouting in English!
The march served to
demonstrate to all those watching that disabled people are here, we are not
hiding away, and we demand to be able to be active, equal citizens. Although there have been many steps forward
there is still some way to go. Disabled
people in Norway are not
facing quite the scale of cutbacks being experience by disabled people in the UK but they still face an uphill battle, for
example Norway
has only just ratified the UN convention on the rights of people with
disabilities.
It was a great feeling of
solidarity amongst disabled people and of course the world needs constantly
reminding that we are here insisting on our right to equality. Is it time we had a freedom march in the UK perhaps?
Sue Bott - Development Director - Disability Rights UK
2 comments:
what a pity* UK* joined in 2008! but Article19* is not recognised in law!
Richard*
Wiltshire*
Hi There, I just spent a little time reading through your posts, which I found entirely by mistake whilst researching one of my projects. Please continue to write more because it’s unusual that someone has something interesting to say about this. Will be waiting for more!
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