World Disability Day, December 3, is an occasion for various actions – some “celebrate the holiday” and hold banquets, others raise serious issues. The Movement for Independent Living does not celebrate December 3 as a holiday but as an occasion for public discussion of pressing issues, which you can find in any country in the world. Unfortunately, Bulgarians with disabilities are among those with many problems – from the inaccessible environment to hard-to-reach employment, from outdated technical support for mobility and daily services to personal assistance, from inaccessible transport to the unreformed healthcare system.
This year we offer a discussion about personal аssistance – the tool of empowerment and support that helps people with disabilities to live independently even in the absence of accessibility in the environment (completely unacceptable fact!) or using loving relatives like personal assistants, who are ready to give up their own lives to care for a person with a disability in the family.
On the 3rd of December from 15.00 to 18.00, we will gather at the usual place lately – on the World Wide Web – to talk about personal assistance in Bulgaria. We will hear the story of Jamie Boling from Stockholm about the “gold standard” in personal assistance set by the Swedish government and active citizens with disabilities 30 years ago. We will find out from Minister Sacheva what the government’s view of the law is and its current effect. Users of personal assistance will share their personal experiences, and Teodor Mladenov will present a tool to assess the mechanism of personal assistance and the way it works to understand “where we are.”
To participate in the meeting, please register on this link until 01.12.2020.