P.A. law campaign - Stop the difference

We urge governments and the European Parliament to:

• Act now: Stop inequalities, Stop segregation
• Human rights for all
• Personal assistance for all
• Make article 19 of the UN Convention a reality
• Start consulting with organizations run and controlled by disabled people with experience in independent living

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Member`s meeting in May 2004

On the occasion of the international day of the handicapped, members of the Youth handicapped Deprivileged - YHD (operating within the Mreža za Metelkovo and Prevention and Voluntary Work Society) took action to once again call public attention to the much discussed but unresolved problem of architectural obstacles in the city of Ljubljana and elsewhere. We decided to take this step after we had had enough of waiting in front of buildings for passers-by to help us mount the stairs, of fighting our way to theatres between waste bins, of choosing to pursue particular studies only because the faculty building was physically accessible to us…

It was one of the first "major" projects we organised when we were still the informal group Youth Handicapped Deprivileged Movement. The idea was to promote the culture of the handicapped among the broader public. We believed (and still believe) that it was important to try and change through our own perspective and our creative production the established, often stereotyped picture of handicapped persons.

CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH LITHUANIA
Ljubljana 13 June - 23 June 1996



Participants in the Project:

Nataliya Stetcenko Nataliya Stetcenko is a graduate of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania. She engages in a very specific kind of icon painting using traditional embroidery technique which, she says, resembles painting in which the motif is applied onto the surface with the needle. Nataliya exhibited her works in Moscow, Vilnius and other places in Lithuania. She brought 24 works to the exhibition in Ljubljana.

3.December was proclaimed the international day of the handicapped. This year it is devoted to the struggle against violence, oppression and exploitation of handicapped people. In our country, just as in the western and third world countries, violence against handicapped people is a very frequent occurrence. Seemingly comfortable and refurbished institutes and sheltered workshops are still the sites of surveillance and humiliation of people. Attempts are being made at depriving individuals of basic human rights through medical ideology in the form of classification of people into those who have special needs and those who do not

KARAVAN FESTIVAL SARAJEVO 2000
METELKOVA MESTO, LJUBLJANA, 21 April - 22 April 2000


The Festival was designed for the promotion of cultural exchange, but was also prompted by the wish to encourage connections between independent artists and cultural activists in the regions of former Yugoslavia which have loosened up considerably in the post-war period.

The Festival, its concept and the way we are developing it is our vision of the renewal of civil society in the territory of former Yugoslavia.

In the post-war period independent artists have been confined within the new geographic borders which have made their contacts, communication, activity and presentation much more difficult. Financial problems only further aggravate the development of independent cultural and artistic production in the territory of former Yugoslavia.

The project of cultural exchange the central part of which is the presentation of Slovenian artists in BIH and BIH artists in Slovenia was launched by the activists of Metelkova Mesto, Ljubljana, and Kolektiv of Sarajevo.

HEXPO Festival, 17.8. - 7.9.2000


HEXPO was an international festival held 17 August to 7 September in Ljubljana, Maribor and Koper, linking several co-producers (through live transmission of picture and sound from Festival scenes). The participants were authors, activists and thinkers working on a self-organised, interdisciplinary basis, outside the prevailing institutional frameworks. Apart from the artistic programme, the Festival also included many lectures and workshops. The aim of the workshops was to acquaint authors, activists and producers with the ways of active and creative use of new media as tools for their independent work and the linking, interchange (of ideas, knowledge, production) and synchronisation of their activity. The Festival was conceived as a constructive criticism of the dominant modes of presentation of art. Details about the Festival can be obtained by following the link to hexpo web page.

This joint project of the societies MODRA and YHD was carried out from January till June 2000. It was launched with the idea to promote independent living, educate the public and the profession, heighten public awareness of handicap and draw attention to the stories passed over in silence. It sought to turn general attention to various prejudices against handicapped people and to make pictures of handicap a part of everyday life. In the framework of the project we also collected literature and video material for a book and video library on the subject of handicap.


As part of the project we:

1. carried out training of social workers from entire Slovenia focusing on the "professional treatment" of handicapped people,
2. carried out the prize competition "Images of handicap",
3. organised in SOT 24 an exhibition of the works received, with the VALI music group opening the exhibition with their concert.

The sponsors of the project were the Open Society Institute - New York and the Open Society Institute - Slovenia.

Since September 1996 when our club at Metelkova street (the Lovci building) was reopened and named SOT 24 we have staged there more than 250 events connected with the activity of our society. SOT 24 was conceived as a space for the promotion of our goals and values and the acquainting of the public with the position of marginal or deprivileged groups. To this end we organise there lectures on topics in social studies (theory of handicap, marginal social groups - young people, women, homosexuals, homeless people), exhibitions, information activities, evening socials and film shows, evenings for volunteers... The YHD society strives for a change in the position of handicapped persons (and thus also of other marginal groups, for emancipation can only be universal). Handicap the way we understand it is a concept, not just a substitute for the term disability. As D. Rutar puts it, "handicap is a symbolic and social position of people, an historical category conditional on more or less accidental circumstances." It is from this concept that we proceed in our activities, actions and projects for changing our position and for our rights (and responsibilities), above all the right to be different. This year we have moved to larger premises which we now call SOT 24.5