incluD-ed will participate in the High Level Meeting “From Inclusive Education to Inclusive Employment for People with Disabilities”
Mon, 11/05/2015 - Tue, 12/05/2015
incluD-ed has been invited to participate in the High Level Meeting on Disability “From Inclusive Education to Inclusive Employment for People with Disabilities”, which is organized under the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and will take place in Riga on 11-12 May, 2015.
The High Level Meeting will start with a ministerial meeting that will bring together ministers and high-level policy makers from the EU Member States to discuss the progress achieved in inclusive education and employment for persons with disabilities five years after the UNCRPD ratification. Ministers will sign a declaration “Changing approach to disability -from medical to human rights and social approach”.
The conference that will follow the ministerial meeting will focus on the implementation of the UNCRPD in the EU, to discuss measures that have been implemented in the Member States to support the shift in disability policies from a passive medical approach to a human rights and social approach, and to identify further challenges and measures needed.
The conference will bring together key actors and stakeholders from the EU Member States, the European Commission and other EU institutions, civil society organisations, disability experts and social partners. The High Level Meeting is supported and co-financed by the European Commission.
incluD-ed will participate on May 11 in one of the two parallel work sessions that are under the working theme “Rights of children with disabilities”. The specific title of the work session where incluD-ed will intervene is “Inclusive education – doing away with barriers”. The session will be moderated by Irena KOWALCZYK-KEDZIORA from the Council of Europe and DG Democracy. Carla BONINO from Fundación ONCE as network leader will represent the incluD-ed network. She will speak about “Inclusive education and vocational training: the experience of the European Network for Inclusive Education and Disability”.
In this session, next to the incluD-ed network, the Assistant Director of the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education Victoria SORIANO will speak about the “Role of support measures in favour of inclusive education” and Yannis YALLOUROS from European Union of the Deaf and EDF Executive Committee will answer the question “How do assistive technologies enable inclusive education?”. Furthermore in the same work session, Nevena PENEVA from the Fundamental Rights Agency will talk about “Triggers of violence and hostility against children with disability in schools”.
Other participants of the High Level Meeting on Disability are Brando BENIFEI (Vice-president to the Disability Intergroup of the European Parliament), Nils MUIZNIEKS (Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights), Yannis VARDAKASTANIS (President of European Disability Forum) and Luk ZELDERLOO (EASPD).
A part from assessing the EU Member State’s progress in the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the conference will examine to what extent previous or on-going initiatives in the area of disability policy have been effective and what can be done to facilitate further implementation of the UN Convention and to improve the life quality of people with disabilities in the EU.
