Disability Rights Monitoring in Practice: Applying Holistic Participatory Methodology

This chapter is a short summary of the personal experience of participation in the Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI) project in Europe by two women disability rights advocates with the living experience of disability. The DRPI project is a global collaborative project aiming to set up an independent monitoring framework using holistic participatory disability rights monitoring methodology. In doing so, it seeks to empower grassroots Disabled People’s Organizations and to equip them with the knowledge and tools to monitor their rights. The authors explore the emancipatory potential of DRPI holistic participatory monitoring methodology, reflecting on their personal experience of involvement with the DRPI project in the region of Eastern Europe. With a time distance, they offer critical reflections on the advantages and shortfalls of DRPI methodology. Sonja was the trainer in the DRPI country monitoring training in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Moldova. She followed the process of elaborating country monitoring of holistic reports in these countries, which facilitated her understanding of the broader picture and thus her own endeavors in her country of origin. Emma was a participant in the DRPI country monitoring training and later conducted interviews with persons with disabilities and reported their experiences of human rights violations. She founded a nongovernmental organization for young people with disabilities and presented Moldova’s alternative report in Geneva. These developments considerably changed the situation in her hometown and contributed to the shift of perception of disability in Moldovan society as a whole.