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A world Refugee Day celebration through the theme Nothing About Us Without Us. this was to call for meaningful participation in decision making processes on programs concerning refugees. it has been long when refugees are considered as people who can’t take decisions and denied to be on the decision making table.
We call again for meaningful refugees participation in decision making processes from the agenda stage, to the implementation stage and to the Monitoring and Evaluation stage because #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs
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Above is Muombamungu James, the Executive Director for the Association of Refugees with Disability(ARD) giving a speech whereby he clarified that disability is not inability and talked about the need of meaningful participation in decision making processes on programs concerning refugees with disabilities:
Disability need not to be an obstacle to success. It may not seem like the society Knows but today I would like to tell you the truth that any Person With Disability can build a happy and meaningful life by him/her self even if he/she may not be able to walk, hear or see.
when it comes to opportunities, Persons With Disabilities are oftenly left behind because decisions concerning their supports are made without their participation and that is the reason to why many project fail.
Participation offers opportunities for affected persons to contribute to the best ways of solving their challenges, and beyond that to contribute to the needs of the communities that are hosting them. Participation also avoids creating dependency and marginalization, or disillusion and hopelessness. It is a capacity development strategy: at the individual level, institutional level, and at the broader community level as well. It even ensures greater stability and security. Matters of national security, for example, cannot be adequately addressed without the meaningful participation of affected persons. Refugees with disabilities themselves are more acutely aware than any other actor of the risks they face, the various causes/sources of those risks, and strategies that they can use to mitigate them. This is because for them it is a matter of daily survival. That’s why refugee with disabilities meaningful participation is a key in decision making processes on the mater concerning them.
Meaningful participation will not happen as a matter of common practice unless predominant institutions (including but not limited to UNHCR, national and international civil society, the donor community and host governments) reflect on the ways their systems exclude refugees with disabilities. These entities must identify and change internal practices that make engagement unsafe, unproductive or impossible for refugees with disabilities.
“Nothing About Us Without Us.”