What is Empower Us?

Empower Us is our global self-advocacy training programme. The programme supports our members with their self-advocacy and inclusion work in their countries. Empower Us is led by self-advocates.

Who took part?

Each organisation held a 2 day training session. Groups of self-advocates along with their supporters came together in person and the trainers joined online to lead the training. 

Self-advocate leaders Chantal from Benin and Gael from Togo led Empower Us sessions on Human Rights, Hassan from Uganda and Mark from Malawi led Empower Us sessions on the CRPD.

New challenges

The in person/online sessions are a new way of running the Empower Us training. To get the training right the Empower Us team of self-advocates worked to change the training to make sure there was a good mix of in person activities and discussions and online presentations from the trainers and that the sessions were short enough for people to not get tired of looking at screens.  

The Inclusion Africa Empower Us self-advocate trainers

What next?

The second part of the training programme will happen in 2022 and will focus on advocacy and how self-advocates can work together to influence decision makers in their countries. 

The training went well. I feel like they learn new things. Other organisations do not train people with intellectual disabilities on these things. The idea is to empower self-advocates with information they can use to advocate. In the future we can use this new way of leading the training to reach more self-advocates, they will teach others.

Mark Mapemba, Inclusion International’s Vice-President