Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Social Structures

Symposium

Author: Dr Ana María Sánchez Rodríguez, MSCA Fellow and Adjunct Assistant Professor of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute

Since 1992, we celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) and this year’s theme is “Leadership and participation of persons with disabilities toward an inclusive, accessible and sustainable post-COVID-19 world”. Similarly, in 2019, the theme was: “Promoting the participation of persons with disabilities and their leadership: taking action on the 2030 Development Agenda”. The IDPD 2019, focused on persons with disabilities and their organisations’ empowerment in order to push forward the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. The IDPD reminds us of the challenges ahead and the way forward.

Supporting collaborative leadership and promoting meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their organisations must be a priority. Persons with disabilities need to be engaged in the decision-making processes that affect their lives. To commemorate the IDPD, I’d like to suggest and reflect on the following questions:

What does it mean to promote leadership and participation of persons with disabilities?
What has been achieved so far in this regard?
What are the learnings to bring forward to lead an inclusive, accessible, and sustainable change for persons with disabilities?

Author: Marco Lombardi, Department of Social Educational Care Work and Researcher at Equality Research Collective, Hogent University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Ghent, Belgium.

Social Lives

Marco Lombardi

Since its establishment in 2007, World Autism Awareness Day has grown up. It began as a celebrative day to facilitate acknowledgment of persons with Autism and the recognitions of supports enable participation in society. A few years have passed and the awareness of persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has increased. The improvement has brought greater visibility, respect and access to treatments. Guidelines have been developed worldwide and more personalized supports have been tailored and delivered for pupils and teenagers. As the awareness grow up, persons with ASD have grown too. This growing awareness has revealed different barriers to the participation to society, especially for adults, that have not been considered at earlier ages.

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