After a long delay due to the COVID-19 lockdown in Kigali, the Rwanda Down Syndrome Organization (RDSO) has resumed self-advocacy training sessions this Saturday, February 27, 2021. For self-advocates, it was a happy moment to reunite with their colleagues, as many of them know each other from attending the same special schools, and all schools in Kigali have been closed or remote due to the lockdown.
In this second session, the self-advocates were introduced to the concept of rights, specifically the right to education. Self-advocates learned about the existence of CRPD (Convention of Rights of Persons with Disability) and how it has been ratified by most countries in the world and has been enacted to make sure that the rights of people with disabilities are respected like other rights.
Talking about CRPD article 24 was not an easy topic for the self-advocates to grasp, but the trainers took advantage of the self-advocates’ preferred attention to visuals and showed them several pictures of students in schools doing different activities. This strategy enabled self-advocates to remember the types of activities that are done in school and the benefits of those activities. Some pictures depicted self-advocates themselves participating in public speaking and fun activities in past events and enabled the self-advocates to relate those instances to the topic of rights; they were taught that they have the right to express their opinions and needs on top of having the right to education.
The self-advocates were also involved in activities related to delivering the training whereby one self-advocate served refreshments at the beginning of the training, some were involved in coordinating the football game that happened during the break, and others took charge of song recommendations for the dance at the end of the session.
By Munezero Mugiraneza Pascaline, Volunteer at RDSO