Don’t wait to be asked to be involved! Here are things you can start doing now as an individual or as part of a group.
As an individual you can:
- Look at the rights described in Part 2. Think about what each of the rights means for you and which are most important to you. Do you have those opportunities in your own life? What would help you enjoy the rights in practice? For example, if you are not working but want to, think about: what things are proving helpful to you? What things are getting in your way? If you could change something what would it be?
- Write down or record your thoughts and then share them. You could send them to the Equality and Human Rights Commission or the other Commissions, ODI (or the Scottish Government or Welsh Assembly Government, depending on what the issue is and where you live) or one of the national disability organisations like the UK Disabled People’s Council or Disability Wales. This will help them work out what is going well and what more needs to be done. They may use your evidence in their report.
As a group you can:
- Gather evidence from your members about their experiences. Pick out the rights you think will be most relevant to them from Part 2 and ask them to tell you about any barriers they face and what action would help them enjoy those rights in practice.
- Use that evidence to produce a shadow report on the Convention for the UN Disability Committee, or organise the evidence (arrange it according to the relevant articles) and send it to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, ODI or a national disability network you are involved with or know of. They may use the evidence for their reports.
- Ask to see your MP (England/Britain), MSP (Scotland) or AM (Wales) to discuss your findings. They could pick up some of the issues and start putting pressure on government to act. If you’re not sure how, then a national disability organisation may be able to help you.