How can Deaf people get involved in the European Year of People with Disabilities?

You should contact your own National Deaf Association and ask them which activities they have planned to commemorate the Year. If you are active in a local Deaf Club, you could organise something with your local Deaf club.

On the website www.eypd2003.org you can find all the information regarding the European Year. On this website you can also find link(s) to your country’s website with more information about the European Year activities in your own country. The year’s objective is to achieve progress in achieving equal rights for people with disabilities.

Festivals, debates, partnerships, conferences, protests, parties, lobbying and more… Thousands of activities and events will happen in 2003 at national and local level. They will be linked through a “People’s March”. Starting in January 2003 a specially designed European Year bus will travel through cities, towns and villages in the 15 EU Member States.

The slogan for the Year is: “Nothing about us without us”.

The European Year will be coordinated in each country by a National Coordinating Body.

We encourage you to get involved by going to events and activities in your own country or to organise your own activities! This is YOUR year and it will only be successful if you get involved!

Of course, the idea is not that everything is over at the end of the Year. We have very high expectations for concrete outcomes of 2003: legislation and action at national level to prevent discrimination, new initiatives to take barriers down and new and stronger alliances. To this end you need to lobby your own governments, at national, regional and local level to make society barrier-free for all. You can contribute to the equal rights movement by asking your government to recognise your sign language, to provide sign language interpreters in education and at work and in other situations, to provide a high quality bilingual education to deaf children etc.