Disabled Youth Leadership Training in Post Conflict Resolution

In societies that have undergone recent war or civil society conflict, it is necessary to build cooperative relationships between citizens and civil societies after the active conflict is over. The development of cooperative and collaborative relationships between regions in conflict must be founded on concrete, shared values and mutually beneficial activities and outcomes.

Disabled persons and their representative disability NGOs historically find themselves marginalized politically, economically and socially within their societies in times of peace, and this marginalization becomes even more severe during and after times of conflict. Disabled leaders in regions of conflict recognize that the political, economic and social marginalization of disabled persons within their societies continues in times of peace or conflict. War and civil conflict always create newly disabled veterans and civilians who find themselves members of this marginalized sector of their societies without the information, resources and skills to reintegrate themselves into society as productive citizens. This lack of opportunities and resources in pre and post conflict regions is severe enough to encourage leaders of disability NGOs to cooperate with all available sources in order to obtain information, resources and technical assistance. Therefore, disability leaders from regions previously in conflict often work across borders of political and geographic conflict to establish cooperative relationships and collaborative activities with other disability NGOs.

The Georgian Coalition of Disability NGOs and Veterans is a legally registered NGO and is a coalition of 50 disability NGOs throughout Georgia working collaboratively to protect the rights of disabled persons and promote their integration into Georgian society. The Abkhazian Forum of Disability NGOs and Veterans is an informal coalition of 7 disability NGOs collaborating to protect the rights of disabled persons and promote their integration into Abkhazian society. The Abkhazian Forum expects to receive its legal status by early 2005.

Over the last 5 years, the Georgian Coalition and the Abkhazian Forum have established communications and continue to share information with each other to achieve common goals that promote the rights of disabled persons in each of their societies. This informal exchange of information and resources has increased the desire of both disability coalitions to further deepen and strengthen concrete, practical collaborative activities that are based upon shared values and mutually beneficial outcomes.

With support from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Georgia, representatives from the Abkhaz NGO AIS, and the Georgian Coalition met in January 2004 in Moscow with representatives from WID and Perspektiva and requested to be included in the training seminars and project activities of the 3 year project to create an International Network of disability NGOs from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia and Uzbekistan. WID had already included disability NGOs from Armenia and Azerbaijan, other post conflict societies in the Caucasus, as collaborating partners in project activities and the international network of disabled youth activist teams. Therefore, WID agreed that the participation of the Georgian Coalition and the Abkhazian Forum in the international project's activities would strengthen each disability NGO's capacity to protect the rights and advocate for the integration of disabled persons in their societies. In addition, their participation in the international network of information exchange would further promote understanding and cooperation between each other and could serve as a model for conflict resolution between civil societies in conflict.

WID then requested the assistance of the OSCE Mission in Georgia to secure international funding to support the participation of the Abkhaz NGO AIS and the Georgian Coalition as collaborating disability NGOs within our 3-year international training project. The OSCE Mission agreed and has successfully secured one year of funding from the Belgian government. The head of the OSCE Mission, Mr. Roy Reeve, has also requested permission from USAID to allow the participation of these two Disability NGOs in the International Network Project.

His letter is reprinted below as an excellent example of understanding and support for the inclusion of disability organizations in the resolution of civil conflicts.

OSCE
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
Mission to Georgia

2 June 2004

Randal Thompson
U.S. Agency for International Development
Europe and Eurasia Bureau
Room 5.7.110
Washington D.C. 20523

Dear Ms Thompson,

I am writing in reference to the project "Civic Diplomacy through Disability Advocacy Youth Teams" that the OSCE Mission to Georgia is pursuing in partnership with the Association of Disabled Persons Perspektiva and the World Institute on Disability.

The OSCE Mission to Georgia is working to promote democratization, the observance of human rights and the rule of law as essential for the long-term security of the country. This is especially true when considering the two zones of conflict. Our approach is based on the belief that any political solution to the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict needs to be supported in advance by strengthening the ability of the two societies to interact with one another in a meaningful way. To this end, we are focusing on promoting the ability of actors on both sides of the conflict to effectively participate in decision making in their communities through advocacy as a necessary step in developing their capacity to engage in the conflict resolution process.

To date, many donor attempts to support cross-borderline relationships between Georgian and Abkhaz civil actors have had limited success for several key reasons. First the relationships across conflict lines were often stimulated artificially and were not based on mutual need. Second, often participants were identified these on their willingness to engage with the other side, even if they did not have sufficient support within their own communities to make their interactions meaningful. Lastly, often the level of development of civil society was not strong enough in itself to engage meaningfully in confidence-building measures. The OSCE Mission has identified funding to support the project "Civic Diplomacy through Disability Advocacy Youth Teams", to bring together two disability organizations in Tbilisi and Sukhumi by helping them develop their own disabled youth teams to conduct advocacy in their communities. The project meets all three of these necessary criteria, while simultaneously demonstrating an effective committee advocacy model, a key need in either society.

The partnership between the Georgian NGO Coalition of the Disabled and Veterans based in Tbilisi (the Disability Coalition) and the Sukhumi- based disability NGO AIS was established naturally, based on mutual need and interest. But organizations have engaged successfully in disability advocacy efforts in their own communities and both have a need to expand these efforts through mutual support and connection to the wider disability community. Due to the nature of their movement, both groups have experienced significantly less pressure from counterparts in their own societies, as many of them became disabled through the conflict itself. Both organizations have the explicit support of their relative authorities to engage in this collaboration.

The partnership between these two NGOs can be compared with the partnership developed over the past 10 years between the U.S.-based World Institute on Disability (WID) and the Russian Association of Disabled Persons Perspektiva, who have had an extremely successful track record in developing and training disability youth advocacy teams in the former Soviet Union through the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The OSCE Mission welcomes their latest project, funded by USAID, to support disabled youth teams in a network of mutual support in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Uzbekistan. We believe this project would be an invaluable support to our initiative in Georgia. We would like to formally request your support to allow the young people with disabilities to develop their advocacy skills through our cross- borderline project in Georgia to gain access to the Perspektiva-WID network funded by your Agency. We hope that adding youth from Georgia, including Georgian and Abkhaz representatives, will add to the success of both of our efforts.

Sincerely yours,
Roy Reeve
Head of Mission

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