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Success Story
Advocacy campaign
results in city
government making
special provision for the
disabled
People With Disabilities Receive Better Access
Photo: Counterpart
Participants attend a USAID-supported
workshop on advocacy planning.
With training and funding
from USAID, a local
advocacy organization
achieves the enforcement
of a law on the access to
government buildings for
people with disabilities.
As a result of an advocacy campaign supported by USAID,
the authorities in the Kazakh city of Karagandy have equipped
the city’s main government building with a ramp for people in
wheelchairs.
The advocacy campaign in Karagandy was undertaken by Tirlik,
a Karagandy-based Disabled Persons Organization. The
campaign lobbied the authorities of Karagandy to expand
access to government buildings for people with disabilities.
Even though the law stipulates that such premises should be
readily accessible for people with disabilities, in practice this
requirement is often ignored.
Tirlik developed this campaign inspired by a USAID-sponsored
advocacy training course that sought to expand the ability of
Kazakh disabled persons organizations to advocate for their
constituents. At the course, Tirlik and other organizations
learned to engage stakeholders more effectively, to select the
most appropriate mechanisms for their advocacy messages,
and to organize public hearings on the issues it represents.
“The training course provided practical examples from the local
context,” said training participant, Kairat Imanaliev. “Such an
approach helped us enormously to understand how to identify the
most fitting advocacy mechanisms.”
With funding from USAID, Tirlik mobilized several disabled persons
organizations and launched a campaign about compliance with
laws on access for people with disabilities. Tirlik organized two
public hearings that were attended by city officials, specialists,
and disabled people’s organizations which called on the city
government to uphold the disability provisions of the building law.
As a result of the advocacy campaign, the Karagandy city
authorities allocated 1,500,000 Tenge ($12,500) to construct a
wheelchair ramp into the city’s main government building. The
authorities also pledged to build additional ramps, indicating
that these would be the starting point of a major effort to apply
the disability provisions of the building law. City authorities have
also set up a commission to carry out the disability provisions of
Kazakhstan’s law on new and reconstructed buildings and invited
Tirlik’s Executive Director to become a commission member.
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