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The Advocacy
in Action project is about
assisting people with disability and their family members to
be more involved in their communities. It is an advocacy
development project for people with disability living in
rural and remote NSW.
Advocacy in
Action works with people
regardless of their type of disability or cultural
background and their supporters in their local area to bring
about change at local, regional and state-wide levels. The
Advocacy in
Action project can assist
people living in rural and regional areas with a disability
and their families to learn more about
- their rights and
responsibilities
- about
self-advocacy
- and how to set up
self-help group, support groups and advocacy
groups.
Come along and -
What's Happening
AIA Update May
2006
Welcome to JAMES who is helping us with
our newlsetter! James has been part of AIA in Queanbeyan.
James will be contacting people in local areas to find out
more about what everyone's up to and to gather your
contributions for our newsletter. He'll also be pulling
together information about local happenings and putting them
up on the website so everyone can check out what everyone
else is doing. Let us know if you'd like to help out in any
way.
We've been working on a joint work-plan
with Rural Disability Network to link people with disability
living in rural, regional and remote parts of NSW in a
self-sustaining network.
Griffith
People with disability in Griffith are
organising a Multicultural Community Festival. The aim of
the festival is to encourage unity between the various
CALD communities in Griffith. The Multicultural Festival
is being run by people in the community for the community
as a whole. AIA is supporting the key people with
disability who are doing work in this area.
The Festival will be held on 12 June
2006. Get along to it if you can!
Young
People with disability in Young are
planning to go bowling. With Belconnen being their
closest bowling alley, this is not as easy as it sounds!
The group are negotiating the use of a bus. They're also
raising money and are applying for funding to pay for the
use of the bus and pay for petrol. The group would like
to invite others with disability who live in Young, their
friends and families. They are also exploring ideas so
that they can be trained for an LR bus
licence.
Queanbeyan
The group in Queanbeyan is going
through some changes and continuing to work with the TAFE
Outreach worker for arts development classes and an
exhibitions.
Also our very own Luis is setting up
information sessions at the Queanbeyan Multilingual
Centre. We will be attending a few of their regular
meetings to tell people from CALD communities in
Queanbeyan about disability.
Coffs Harbour
We met with people in Coffs Harbour
and facilitated a some planning towards their vision of
setting up individual advocacy in the area. People then
negotiated with a local service provider (Mid North Coast
Regional Council for Social Development) for the
information, training and support that they would need to
develop individual and self advocacy. The group then took
part in a meeting with DASH (Disability Advocacy Services
Hunter) who have agreed to extend their programmes into
the Coffs Harbour area. This is very exciting news since
it is a goal that people with disability in Coffs Harbour
have been working towards for many years!
Far West
We worked with other state wide
organisations and took our 'Be the Voice' road train to
Broken Hill, Tibooburra and Wilcannia. We met with 25
people with disability and support staff in Broken Hill.
People are very keen to do a Photo Voice project which
builds on some training they've been doing recently
developing camera skills. We also met with local people
and health workers in Tibooburra and Wilcannia as well as
the police in Tibooburra. We are looking forward to our
next visit and will be planning our next trip
soon.
If you'd like to get involved in any
of these projects, let us know and we'll put you in touch
with people working on them!
Project
Update
2006 is the fourth
year of the AIA project. Many people connected with the
project have recently been involved in a review of it.
The input from participants has been very valuable and we
will use it to plan the next year of our work.
In addition to the
outcomes of the review, our focus this year will be on
providing information and opportunities for people
connected with AIA to learn and fine-tune skills in
getting connected, running small groups and meetings,
do-it-yourself advocacy and planning responses to local
issues.
We are currently putting
together a plan for the first half of 2006 and we'll let
you know about it as soon as it's finished.
If you have any ideas for
AIA over the next 6 months please give Sharon or Luis a
call on 1800 629 072 or email
sharon.smith@mdaa.org.au
Previous Events
2005
2004
2003
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