News
Plena International in 2024: Self-Advocates Learning Together Across Borders
- Inclusive participation & citizenship
- Ending discrimination
Inclusion International and our member in Spain, Plena Inclusion have worked together since 2022 to organise monthly online self-advocate meetings.
We call this project “Plena International”.
My name is Mark Mapemba and I work with Ana, a self-advocate from Plena Inclusion to make Plena International happen. Ana and I plan and chair the meetings so it is always led by self-advocates.
At the meetings, self-advocates from different parts of the world meet once a month to talk about different topics that are very important for people with disabilities such as accessibility, employment or independent living.
The 2024 report is now out. The report is about the topics we talked about and what self-advocates shared in the meetings.
In 2024, we had more than 40 self-advocates joining the monthly meetings.
We had self-advocates from 36 countries take part in 2024!
Self-advocates from these countries took part in these meetings. We heard from speakers who are self-advocates and have experience in different topics like legal capacity, sexual and reproductive health, political participation, the history of self-advocacy, inclusive health, inclusive research, climate change, innovation, and disability pride.
The 2024 meetings report is in 4 languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can read the report here:
These meetings have been so helpful to self-advocates. We have seen self-advocates connecting to one other, seeing self-advocates around the world.
As you can see we covered different topics and this has helped us to learn from each other. This has made the self-advocate movement stronger because we able to meet monthly and learn new things.
We are still meeting the last Thursday of every month, at 5pm Spanish time. Self-advocates are welcome to join this meeting. If you have not joined yet, all self-advocates are welcome.
You can contact me at mark@inclusion-international.org if you are a self-advocate and you want to join the meetings.