Advocacy

A woman offering her legal services to another with a disability

Direct and active support, and action without violence for persons with disabilities at both the individual and systemic levels. Progress Center and Independent Living Radio fight to educate and inform people with disabilities, their families, and friends on what their rights are and how to actively put pressure on their legislators to work on passing bills into laws that will open the path to inclusion. We also make sure that these legislators do comply with the current laws that are for people with disabilities.

We here at Progress Center have an Advocacy Department. We do not practice legal advocacy. Nevertheless, we will refer you where to go, when we learn that legal rights have been violated. 

Our advocacy consists of empowering our constituents. Here we provide the tools necessary to learn how to fight, not only for themselves but the common good. The Advocacy Coordinator is the one who writes letters, makes phone calls, and meets with legislators to lay out what are the needs and acts that either prevent or benefit the daily progress of people with disabilities. Also, if any legislator opposes or doesn’t support a bill that benefits persons with disabilities then the Advocacy Coordinator is in charge of planning and creating alliances with other activist groups that fight for the same causes to organize the community and take action against those legislators who oppose or do not support the progress of people with disabilities.

The Advocacy Coordinator also provides a 10-week legislative training course twice a year that trains people with disabilities how to fight for their rights and how to speak with their legislators.

Under our Advocacy Department, we also have the Community Organizer. The Community Organizer is the one in charge of identifying and recruiting persons with the potential for leadership to work with him or her to individually motivate them to fight for various causes, needs or injustices, in their communities. The Community Organizer works in conjunction with the Advocacy Coordinator to find housing options, resources for making accessibility accommodations within the homes of wheelchair-users. Both also keep track of discriminations cases regarding transportation, housing, and other service issues.

We take nonviolent actions to avoid the violation of our rights. We also organize informative discussions on the rights of people with disabilities as we have discovered that most are unaware of their basic rights regarding their status.

Once we have awakened the interests of those persons with disabilities who help us with our work, Later, with the road traveled and our struggles that give us the reason and permit us to remain confident of the possibility of ensuring our human rights, we intend to expand our project and intend to cover an ever growing number of people with disabilities whose rights are being violated. It is this that motivates us to continue with this challenge. This section of information and advice from Independent Living Radio and Progress Center that hopes to serve as a channel of communication and provide basic tools in the defense of our rights, don’t worry about contacting us with all of your concerns. It is Independent Living Radio and Progress Center’s objective to ensure that all benefit, like an extra step more toward total integration and inclusion of people with disabilities.

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