On Wednesday, September 20 2017, The African Union of the Blind unveiled the ‘Kenya ARADI Campaign Team.’ This event took place at the Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya and brings together senior officials from several national Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs) in Kenya.
AFUB in collaboration with the African Disability Alliance (ADA) and CBM (Germany) is running a three-year project dubbed Alliances for Rights – Africa towards Disability Inclusion (ARADI) with funding support from the European Union (EU). The ARADI Programme is aimed at enabling Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Pan-African Disability Federations (PADFs) to participate and contribute to the majority of key – African Union (AU) continental decisions, policies, and laws related to human rights and disability for both women and men. The project kicks-off in September 2017.
To that regard, AFUB is launching the ARADI Advocacy Campaign Team. The goal of the Team is to intensify national advocacy campaigns, with special focus on ratification of the African Disability Protocol (ADP), the Model Disability Legislation and other relevant policies by the Kenya Government as well as other governments in the continent, through their embassies and relevant diplomatic missions in Kenya. The Team that will be meeting once every month for the next four months – to star with – will also provide oversight role in the project implementation.
Inclusion Africa, International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI in Africa), Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN), Kenya Association for the Intellectually Handicapped (KAIH), Kenya Union of the Blind (KUB), Nairobi Family Support Services (NFSS) and the United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK) were in attendance and have agreed to be on the Team. Present in the meeting was also the AFUB Treasurer who in that capacity stood in on behalf of the Board and President of AFUB besides his role as the ICEVI Africa representative.