The Public Advocacy Training Cycle

As part of the Concrete inclusion of persons with disabilities in healthcare in Bosnia and Herzegovina project, financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and Light for the World,MyRight organised a training cycle during September, October, and November 2015, on the topic of Public advocacy to improve the enjoyment of persons with disabilities’ the right to healthcare in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The two-day training sessions were held with the seven coalitions of organisations of persons with disabilities with which MyRight has capacity building programmes for disabled persons.

The purpose of the training was to intensify coalition members’ advocacy activities and increase the impact of their public advocacy campaigns to improve persons with disabilities’ enjoyment of their right to healthcare in the regions or cantons where the coalitions respectively operate.

The training sessions were addressed by the following guest lecturers: the director of the Association for Democratic Initiatives, who presented the process of public policy creation and mapping actors with a view to advocating for legislative change in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a representative of the Banja Luka Helsinki Citizens’ Parliament, the organization implementing the EU-financed IN project (Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina), who presented the recommendations of the Analysis of Harmonisation of BH Legislation with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the field of healthcare.

Five training sessions were carried out with coalitions with which MyRight has cooperated since 2009, with a further two training sessions for representatives of disabled persons’ organisations from the two coalitions MyRight has been working with on capacity building and training programmes only since 2015.