During this project, Inclusion International and Inclusion Europe worked together with our members in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia to develop stronger self-advocacy networks and to grow their work on closing institutions.

This project was funded by the U.S. State Department.

The project is also known as the JUDY project, named after Judy Heumann, a lifelong advocate for disability rights, who passed away in 2023.

Goals

This project had three main goals:

  1. To make sure that self-advocates in Eastern Europe know how to fight for their right to live in the community
  2. To support members in Eastern Europe to do advocacy about closing institutions that fully involve self-advocates
  3. To push cross-disability groups and other organisations to work in a more inclusive way when they do work about closing institutions

Activities

During this project:

  1. Self-advocate leaders from Eastern Europe trained 112 people with intellectual disabilities on self-advocacy, and trained 82 supporters on giving good support
  2. Self-advocacy groups in Eastern Europe met with government leaders, talked to people who run institutions, spoke in the media, and held advocacy events, reaching over 70,000 people
  3. Developed national action plans for closing institutions
  4. Launched a global network of survivors of institutions

Outcomes

Whilst this project finished early in 2025 due to funding cuts from the United States, self-advocates in Eastern Europe will continue to work with their organisations to advocate for closing institutions. Inclusion International continues to bring the global network of survivors of institutions together monthly.