12.11.2009

What about me? Welcome to Helsinki June 3rd – 4th 2010!

What about me? – Including the most excluded.

Improving the quality of life of people with profound disabilities

The UN Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities promotes, protects and ensures the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities and promotes respect for their inherent dignity. People with disabilities are persons with rights, and they are entitled to claim these rights and make decisions for themselves.

Full and effective participation and inclusion in society is recognized in the Convention. We are committed to the values of self-determination, empowerment, active inclusion, equal opportunities, lifelong learning and freedom of choice. The UN Convention and all these values should also be a reality for persons with high support needs and this creates challenges for people concerned, families, service providers and local communities.

The conference speakers from across Europe and beyond will explore ways of promoting these principle values and making the UN Convention a reality in the lives of persons with high support needs.

In the conference we will approach this through three main themes:

• Communication and interaction
• Active support
• Citizenship and inclusion

The goals of the conference will be

• to find ways of making the core values of UN Convention a reality, and of implementing the UN Convention for persons with high support needs
• to discuss, share and learn from each other about best practices
• to establish a network
• to draft a Declaration and Action Plan

Who should attend?

• Professionals, service providers
• People with disabilities and their families
• Researchers, educators
• Politicians

Organizers: EASPD, NVC, Service Foundation for Persons with Intellectual Disability, FAIDD, Finnish Network on Intellectual Disability

Conference venue: Scandic Continental, Helsinki, Finland
Hotel: information will be available on www.easpd.eu in due time
Registration: information will be available on www.easpd.eu in due time
EASPD activities: Saturday 5th June 2010
Conference languages: English-French-Finnish