Our President, Sue Swenson, and our Vice-President, Mark Mapemba, opened the event by sharing the successes and strength of our network over the past 2 years, despite working through a global pandemic and war.

The Running of our Organisation

Our Treasurer, Tim Gadd, then presented the status of our accounts which you can review in the 2020 and 2021 financial reports. 

Nagase Osamu, our Secretary General, highlighted some suggested changes to our constitution and shared our hope to come together for a World Congress in 2024. This will be our first in-person World Congress since 2018.

Members interested in co-hosting a World Congress in their country can express their interest to info@inclusion-international.org.

The Nominating Committee explained the process of electing Council and Officer members in each region, and recommended the individuals selected by their region to the General Assembly. Welcome to Stephanie Gotlib, our new Council Representative for Asia-Pacific.

Unfortunately there have been no formal nominations for the role of Treasurer. Please help us find a replacement by sharing the job advertisement with your network. 

New Policies

When we returned, from the break, we presented the proposals for our new position papers on Inclusive Employment and Inclusive Education. Position papers on topics important to our network help us have a shared voice for advocacy.

Luis Gabriel Villareal and Mark Mapemba shared the Listen Include Respect (LIR) guidelines our members have been building for the last 3 years and our motion to add the principles (big ideas) behind LIR to our Statement of Unity.

New Strategic Plan

Finally, we revealed what we have heard from our members and their regions about how they want the network to work together in the future. This has formed the basis of our new Strategic Plan. The Plan explains our big goals, and the work we want to do to get there.

Before closing, we announced our newest honorary members, Trish Grant and Tim Gadd, and thanked them for their many years of service.