Successful Local Advocacy Approaches
Conference on the legal advocacy methods for persons with disability was held by Coalition for Independent Living, Constitution Article 42 and Public Defender of Georgia at Radisson BLU Iveria Hotel on July 28, 2011.
During the Conference Giorgi Tughushi, Public Defender of Georgia talked about problems faced by persons with disabilities in the country. Other speech makers included Giorgi Dzneladze – Chairman of CIL, Rati Ionatamishvili – Project Manager at CIL, Marika Zaqareishvili – representative from the Ministry of Education, Elene Fileeva – representative from Constitution Article 42 and Sopho Verdzeuli – representative from the Georgian Young Lawyers Association.
In addition, the Conference brought together delegations from Poland, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine who became familiar with the situation and pressing issues of persons with disabilities living in Georgia during their 1-week visit. The Conference resulted in signing the memorandum of cooperation between the participating human rights and disabled people's organizations to address legal advocacy issues together in the future.
The Conference was supported by Open Society Foundation Georgia and East-East Partnership without Borders program in frames of the project “Successful Local Approaches of Legal Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities”. The project is being implemented by Constitution Article 42 in cooperation with Public Defender's Office. The project involved Coalition for Independent Living as a partnering organization in the Conference.