International Disability Alliance

10/10/2026

Being heard is not the same as being included.

This , we want more than a chance to tell our stories.

People with psychosocial disabilities are often asked to share our stories. Then other people make the choices about our lives. They decide our rules, our services, and our support. That must stop.

We know our own lives best. We should help make the decisions: what matters most, where the money goes, how services work, and who is held responsible when things go wrong. Organisations of persons with disabilities must lead this work, together and for the long term.

We are working towards an end to coercion. This means no more:
• Forced treatment
• Forced medication
• Locking people up in hospitals against their will
• Restraint and seclusion

We want support that we choose freely, in our own communities. We require investment in accessible housing, peer support and services that respect people's rights and choices.

This World Mental Health Day, let's move from simply listening to sharing decision-making power.

Listening is not enough. Share the power.

World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

09/10/2026

Women and girls with disabilities in Kenya face gender-based violence at rates up to 2.5 times higher than other women, and the ways to report it are still not accessible.

At the 93rd session of the Committee, we met Millicent Juma from Kenya. Together with United Disabled Persons of Kenya -UDPK and Challenged to Challenge, women with disabilities from Kenya are calling for the 2025 Persons with Disabilities Act to move from rights on paper to rights in practice:

Ø Eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities
Ø Accessible justice and health services, and an end to forced sterilisation
Ø Inclusive education for girls with disabilities
Ø A real place in political life

If you want to learn more about how IDA is challenging violence, click this link to read our latest report:
https://www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org/resources/challenging-violence-coercion-and-control---crpd-guidelines-on-disability-related-violence

African Disability Forum - ADF

09/10/2026

This week at the M-Enabling Summit 2026 in Arlington, IDA and G3ict - The Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs brought together people who build, buy, regulate and live with systems.

Over three rounds of table work, they identified where these systems still fail people with disabilities and began drafting what a CRPD-grounded governance standard would need to require.

Three points came up:

1. Accessibility is still not built in when AI is designed. Persons with disabilities are missing from design teams, testing and the bodies writing AI standards.
2. Failures are found after launch by the people affected, because data about persons with disabilities is missing or out of date and systems are not transparent about where they break.
3. AI systems must be tested for their impact on persons with disabilities before they are released, not repaired afterwards.

By the end of the session, the group had a first draft of five minimum elements: impact testing before release, persons with disabilities involved from the outset, accessibility as a condition of procurement, transparency with a route to appeal, and accurate disability data.

The tables also set out initial ideas for putting them into practice, from a multi-stakeholder working group to international cooperation on standards.

The session was held under the Chatham House Rule, so we won't name participants or attribute anything said to anyone.

What came out of this week is the starting point for IDA’s work with industry on AI, and we will carry it forward on the road to

02/10/2026

Janine and Jennifer are working to put women with disabilities at the center of change.

In the Philippines, Janine and Jennifer are leading the development of Elevate Her, an initiative with a clear starting point: women and girls with disabilities must shape the programmes and decisions affecting their lives.

Being consulted is only part of that. The aim is to create opportunities for women to set priorities, strengthen their organisations and lead the changes they want to see.

Through ASEAN Disability Forum Philippines and WDARE, the proposed initiative brings together leadership and advocacy, economic opportunities, digital inclusion and protection from violence. It seeks to support women and girls with disabilities to understand and exercise their rights and have greater influence over decisions in their communities.

The initiative also recognises that women with disabilities have different experiences and priorities. Age, poverty, ethnicity and geographic isolation can create additional barriers. Elevate Her intends to reach women whose perspectives are too often excluded, including Indigenous women and those living in remote communities.

Elevate Her is being developed against a wider challenge in the Philippines: translating disability rights into everyday opportunities. For women and girls with disabilities, those rights must mean an accessible classroom, transport to reach services, or a fair opportunity to work.

But Elevate Her asks more than how many women experience barriers. It asks what they want to change and what resources and support they need to lead that change.

For Janine and Jennifer, the initiative is an opportunity to put that principle into practice: women with disabilities working alongside to determine the agenda, design the activities and define what progress should look like.

That approach reflects the principle at the heart of Stronger Movements, Stronger Futures: supporting organisations of persons with disabilities to pursue their own priorities and build collective leadership.

Elevate Her ambition is clear: women and girls with disabilities have greater power to shape their own lives and the future of their communities.

Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

28/09/2026

Rihana’s journey to school

Rihana is 11 years old. She lives in a rural area of Timor-Leste, has a physical disability and comes from a family with very limited financial resources.

For her family, the cost of school materials and getting Rihana to school posed a barrier to her education. Ra’es Hadomi Timor Oan (RHTO), an organisation of persons with disabilities, provided financial support to help cover those costs.

That support gave Rihana a way to continue her education. It also shows the role organisations of persons with disabilities play beyond advocating for change: they see the barriers people face in their communities and find practical ways to address them.

Policies that guarantee inclusive education matter. But children like Rihana are growing up now. While work for lasting change, they are also helping children get to school today.

Her experience reflects a much wider gap. According to Timor-Leste’s 2022 census, only 20.5% of primary-school-age children with disabilities attended school, compared with 75.4% of children without disabilities. At secondary-school age, attendance fell to 5.9%, compared with 40.3%.

These figures show the scale of the change needed and why initiatives such as Stronger Movements, Stronger Futures matter. By supporting organisations of persons with disabilities to set their own priorities and act on them.

ASEAN Disability Forum Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade ’es Hadomi Timor Oan (RHTO)

25/09/2026

Agus is working to replace isolation with community support

Hasan Hidayat knows what it means to have others make decisions for him. After he experienced mental health difficulties, his parents sent him to an Islamic boarding school. There, he was chained and kept in isolation. His parents later brought him home.

That experience drove Agus to found , an organisation led by people with in Indonesia. REMISI advocates for their rights and develops community support, including peer support and counselling, so people can make decisions about their lives and remain part of their communities.

Agus’s experience reflects a wider problem. Pasung, the shackling or confinement of people with real or perceived psychosocial disabilities, has been documented in homes and institutions across Indonesia. It is one of the most serious human rights concerns affecting persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. In 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called for urgent action to eradicate pasung and reduce institutionalisation of children with disabilities, while the CRPD Committee has called for a comprehensive strategy and community-based support services.

Through Stronger Movements, Stronger Futures, an initiative funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and led by ASEAN Disability Forum and IDA, organisations of persons with disabilities are supported to lead work shaped by their own priorities.

Agus’s work shows why that matters: people who have experienced exclusion know what needs to change. Through REMISI, he is helping build the support he needed, grounded in rights, choice and community.

23/09/2026

Every sign language in the world is a full, living, and continuously evolving language. Not a workaround.

Today, 23 September, is the International Day of Sign Languages.

This year, we're marking two milestones alongside the deaf community: 75 years since the creation of the World Federation of the Deaf Youth Section, and 20 years since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted, a landmark treaty that explicitly recognises signed languages as languages.

We stand with Deaf people, national associations of the deaf, and sign language users everywhere as they celebrate their languages, cultures, and communities today.

And we recommit to the work still ahead: turning legal recognition into lived reality so that deaf people and other sign language users, in every country, can learn, work and participate fully using their own languages.

Happy International Day of Sign Languages.

World Federation of the Deafblind

21/09/2026

What happens when organisations of persons with disabilities have the resources and freedom to lead the change we all want?

Across eight ASEAN countries- Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam- IDA and the ASEAN Disability Forum, with funding support from Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Stronger Movements, Stronger Futures initiative, support OPD-led initiatives built around collaboration, collective leadership, and locally defined priorities.

The approach is simple but important: follow priorities rather than impose priorities.

The change starts locally, where people live, and systems are shaped.

This means OPDs decide what changes their communities need, how to use resources, and whom they want to work with. Rather than funding organisations in isolation, the initiative supports OPDs to collaborate and transform systems and services for and by persons with disabilities.

More than 194 OPDs are working through partnerships and consortiums across disabilities, generations and communities, bringing different experiences and perspectives together, identifying shared priorities and developing solutions collectively.

This intersectional approach matters. Persons with disabilities do not experience exclusion in the same way. Gender, age, disability, Indigenous identity and other factors can intersect to create different barriers, and those most affected need to be part of shaping the solutions.

From inclusive education and employment to health, climate resilience, access to justice, political participation, digital inclusion, and responsible AI, OPDs set the priorities.

Through the Inclusion Solutions Center, IDA is investing in organisations and projects but, more importantly, in the leadership, agency and collective power of persons with disabilities.

This is authentic OPD leadership, effective representation and collective advocacy translated into sustained solutions for all.

Creating a stronger disability movement and stronger futures for persons with disabilities across the region.

ASEAN Disability Forum Pacific Disability Forum of Australia In Timor Leste

17/09/2026

On 23–24 September, the Global Forum on Disability, Migration and Forced Displacement will bring together persons with disabilities, OPDs, UN agencies, governments, civil society and other partners to examine how migration and refugee systems can better uphold the rights of persons with disabilities.

The Forum is the first global event on disability in labour migration and refugee governance designed, convened and led by , including networks representing migrants and refugees with disabilities.

IDA is proud to support this OPD-led initiative and its accessibility, helping enable meaningful participation from persons with disabilities across different regions.

On 24 September, IDA Executive Director José María Viera will deliver the keynote address during the session “Lessons from the disability movement for labour migration and refugee justice.”

Two days of dialogue, lived experience, and practical solutions, with the aim of turning discussion into action.

23–24 September 2026
Online and free to attend

Register: https://www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org/events/global-forum-on-disability-migration-and-forced-dsiplacement

The forum will be accessible in 10 languages, with Sign Language Interpretation (SLI) and live captioning available.

Network of Refugees with Disabilities

Disability Forum (KDF)

Migration Network (DMN)

and Migration Network (DAMN)

16/09/2026

IDA is deeply saddened by the passing of Victoria Sandoval Cáceres de Lara, President of our member organisation, the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (IFSBH).

Victoria was a dedicated advocate and leader whose commitment to the rights and inclusion of persons with disabilities made an important contribution to the disability movement in Guatemala and internationally.

We extend our deepest condolences to Victoria’s family, friends and colleagues, and to the entire IFSBH and spina bifida and hydrocephalus community.

We honour her life, leadership and contribution to our movement.

It is with profound sadness that the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus announces the passing of our President, Victoria Sandoval Cáceres de Lara, who passed away last week in Guatemala.

Victoria was a passionate advocate, lawyer and leader who dedicated her life to advancing the rights, inclusion and participation of people with disabilities, and in particular people with spina bifida.

As a person with lived experience of spina bifida, Victoria brought a powerful and deeply personal perspective to her advocacy. As President of IFSBH, she was a strong and courageous voice for our global community, representing the Federation internationally with determination, conviction and warmth. Her leadership, commitment and ability to connect with people made a lasting impact on the spina bifida and hydrocephalus community. Victoria leaves behind an important legacy of advocacy and leadership in Guatemala and internationally, as well as the many people she inspired through her work.

Victoria will be deeply missed by her family, friends, colleagues and the entire spina bifida and hydrocephalus community.

We extend our deepest condolences to all those who loved and worked alongside Victoria. We will remember her with great affection and gratitude, and carry her voice and commitment forward in our work.

Read the full obituary notice: https://ifglobal.org/news/in-memory-of-victoria-sandoval-1975-2026/