Date for the Diary: Donegal DPO AGM
Disabled People in Donegal prepare to celebrate International Day of Disabled Persons with the launch of a Disabled Persons’ Organisation for the county.
[Image description: Poster features text in top left which reads: “Donegal DPO (in dark blue) Disabled Persons’ Organisation (in green)”. Then in dark blue under that “Annual General Meeting (AGM)”. The top right is the Donegal DPO logo based on the green Donegal shield with the red solidarity fist on the smaller, centred, white shield, the white dove above and yellow waves rippling through the main green shield at the bottom. In ordinary font, centred across the middle it says “Disabled people who live, work or play in Donegal are very welcome to join us.” The Cara House logo appears on the left with the words, “Cara House, Letterkenny, Tuesday December 2nd,1:30 to 3:30 pm” on the right. Across the bottom, bold red lettering proclaims our slogan, “Nothing about us in Donegal without us”]
Donegal DPO — Disabled People in Donegal prepare to celebrate International Day of Disabled Persons with the launch of a Disabled Persons’ Organisation for the county.
The initial AGM of the Donegal Disabled Persons’ Organisation (DPO) will take place in Cara House, Letterkenny, from 1:30pm on Tuesday, December 2nd, the day before International Day of Disabled Persons.
Community Development worker for the Independent Living Movement Ireland, Pippa Black said, “The DPO is a democratic organisation of disabled people representing ourselves. We decided to time our AGM to celebrate the International Day of Disabled People on December 3rd. The day was renamed in 2007 but as a DPO we are consciously reclaiming its first name in the same way that we consciously use identity first language. We describe ourselves as disabled people. This is because we apply the social model of disability. We do not see ourselves as being disabled by our impairments. Instead, we are disabled by barriers that are socially constructed. Sometimes those barriers are physical like stairs or lack of public seating, sometimes they are attitudinal like when other people decide what we are capable of. We are not ‘persons with disabilities’, as we are trying to eliminate barriers, not carry them around with us.
“Under the UN Convention for the rights of disabled people, the State (including local authorities) must engage with disabled people through our representative organisations when implementing and monitoring our human rights or when making plans and policies that affect us.
“We are actively seeking new members who have lived experience of barriers based on real or perceived impairments and who live, work, or play within county Donegal. We are also reaching out to find disabled people, who are members of other marginalised groups, who likely face multiple levels of discrimination. Membership is free. We unite around our slogan ‘Nothing about us in Donegal without us’, and we take our representative role very seriously, holding ourselves accountable to our members.”
Anyone who would like to join Donegal DPO can email DPO4Donegal@gmail.com or call Pippa on 087 477 0965
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