ADVOCACY TRAINING
PROJECT RESULTS
in a wrap!
TEAM of trainers and participants
PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
TOOL RESULTS
Discover the ingenious tools designed by deafblind leaders and their allies during our advocacy training, showcasing their creativity and problem-solving skills. Please note that these tools are collective creations and do not necessarily reflect the official views of our organisations.
DEAFBLIND LEADER
CHECKLIST
FOR DEAFBLIND
LEADErs and
their allies
CHECKLISTS
ALLY
CHECKLIST
DEAFBLIND
IN SOCIETY
(PRINT VERSION)
MANIFESTO
DEAFBLIND
IN SOCIETY
(BLACK/WHITE VERSION)
DEAFBLIND
IN SOCIETY
(BLACK/YELLOW VERSION)
DEAFBLIND RIGHTS
POSTER
(DOWNLOAD THE POSTER)
POSTER
“Flying all the way from Italy, from Portugal, and from France to attend the training, the participants create spaces for inspiration, developed an increased network of deafblind persons, empowered each other, and deafblind participants became prouder than ever. Are you deafblind? Join our pride!”
ITALY
EVALUATION SONGS
BY PARTICIPANTS
“It was a long wait until Roméo, Clarisse, and Jérémy could attend the training provided by Empoway. During the training, along other participants, we learned so much, developed our knowledge, got so much inspiration, although the concept of deafblind ally was not clear yet to us, and we did not have the possibility to spend our social moments in the evenings together. However, we experienced such a wonderful training week and would all like to thank Empoway from the heart for making it possible!”
FRANCE
“As deafblind persons, we had to walk through the crowd and in the traffic with our canes, and overcome barriers in the environment, such as a road full of obstacles or a ride on a train that was not restless, and as soon as we flew over, we gained trust in ourselves, to our greatest joy! We travelled by plane to the town of waffles, got inspired and strengthened, and returned by plane to our country where we will empower others and play a multiplier role through tactile communication. Encountering barriers in our lives, such as breach of our rights, lack of information, experiencing fear, we reached an inspiring place where we could reflect on ourselves, gain confidence, believe in our capacity to undertake actions, become activists, and grow further”
PORTUGAL
“When we return to Italy, we intend to establish a new organisation of deafblind people and to find more deafblind persons to join our community.
We will undertake policy actions to lobby for our rights.
We plan to organise an exchange camp where any deafblind person of any age is welcome to participate, and to provide training sessions to future deafblind assistants, deafblind interpreters, deafblind allies, and parents of deafblind children as well as a specific training on deafblind communication tools such as Haptics.
We will provide workshops, conferences, and interactive activities for deafblind people, and even more to contribute to resilience and the growth of the deafblind community”
ITALY
ACTION PLANS
by PARTICIPANTS
“As an ally of deafblind people, I commit to support them by different means such as producing videos, editing videos, and undertake media-related tasks they can ask me to do."
"We will look for more deafblind persons in our country that are isolated or hidden in their houses with the aim of creating a new network of deafblind people in Portugal. We will partner with other deaf organisations as well as deaf diverse communities such as the Youth National Association of the Deaf, the LGBTQIA+ community, among others, to gather their support towards our deafblind community. Since our National Association of the Deaf has a close working relationship with the National Human Rights Institution in Portugal, we will investigate with them whether the current legislation addresses the human rights of deafblind people, and if it is not the case, we will work on the development of new legal instruments to recognize their human rights. We would like to establish a deafblind section within our National Association of the Deaf where we could gather deafblind people and organise various (tactile) activities with them”
PORTUGAL
“During three days, our team from France spent time to identify policy actions to undertake in France based on the training:
1. Production and publication of a manifesto and a poster on the rights of deafblind people (including accessibility) to be produced by the National Deafblind Association (Réseau National des SourdAveugles) and endorsed by other deafblind organisations in France, and the National Association of the Deaf (Fédération Nationale des Sourds de France).
2. Spread information on the profile of deafblind allies and deafblind leaders to raise awareness on their role in France.
3. Host a deafblind conference in April 2024 on the work undertaken on both previous actions (poster/manifesto and information on profiles) to gather the support from the deafblind community”