Soufiane El-Amrani writes about his visit to Enable, Scotland.
Last week I was in Glasgow, at Enable.
Enable is a member of Inclusion Europe.
I met their self-advocates during their Self Advocacy Forum.
It was good to see Lucy McKee.
I explained who the European Platform of Self-Advocates are.
I told them about Hear Our Voices, our self-advocacy conference that happens every two years.
And I told them that I am one of the first people with an intellectual disability on the board of the European Disability Forum.
It went really well.
People were really interested to listen to what I had to say.
Self-advocates’ work
But I did not go there only to talk.
I also went there to learn.
I heard how self-advocacy in Scotland work.
I learned that their self-advocates work on many different topics.
They come together as a community, and they share with other self-advocates what they do.
I didn’t like much some of they said:
They said they are not respected.
They said they need to be listened to more, and consulted on the topics that are very important to them.
I left Glasgow with new ideas.
We should speak about their work more in the things we do at Inclusion Europe.
Maybe we can have monthly call with them, to see what they are doing and how we can help each other.
Thank you to everyone at Enable for listening to me.
And for letting me learn from you.
Soufiane El-Amrani, self-advocate and accessibility expert
