Self-Advocates

Inclusion International is the global network of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

People with intellectual disabilities – many of whom have become self-advocates – make up our member organisations and the leadership of Inclusion International.

Our Officers, Council, and staff all include people with intellectual disabilities, alongside families.

What does it mean to be a self-advocate?

Self-advocates are people with intellectual disabilities who: 

1. Understand their rights.
2. Work as a team to support and learn from each other.
3. Speak up about what would make life better for them and other people with intellectual disabilities.

How do we support self-advocacy?

Our Officers, Council members, and staff who are self-advocates lead our work on supporting self-advocacy.

Some of things we do to support self-advocates are:

1. Delivering self-advocacy training through our Empower Us Programme – led by self-advocate trainers, this programme helps people with intellectual disabilities learn their rights and become self-advocates.
2. Supporting self-advocates to connect and learn from each other in regional and global self-advocacy networks
3. Hosting events by and for self-advocates – like our Self-Advocacy Summits
4. Doing advocacy on different topics that are important to people with intellectual disabilities – self-advocates create their big messages, and share those messages in important spaces like at the United Nations.
5. Creating tools and resources that self-advocates and self-advocacy groups can use in their work.

The self-advocacy work that I’m really proud of is helping people with disabilities find their voice and speak up for what they want.

Tia Nelis, Global Self-advocacy Summit 2020