Sin Patria Accesible…La Democracia es Imposible
Costa Rica may conjure up thoughts of “warm, friendly people, tropical climate, beautiful beaches, eco-tourism, volcanoes, rain forests….” Of course, Costa Rica has all that—but wait, there’s more. As a 1200-person strong disability rights march through the center of the capital city demonstrated, Costa Rica’s disability rights movement is alive and thriving.
This movement emerged from the context of both an international movement of people with disabilities and a national commitment to human rights. In this spirit, Ley 7600, the broad, sweeping equal opportunity law for people with disabilities, passed the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly in 1996. In practice, however, the law’s enforcement and implementation remain minimal despite the human rights-oriented climate of Costa Rica.
Enter El Foro por Los Derechos Humanos de las Personas con Discapacidad (Forum for the Human Rights of People with Disabilities), a grassroots organization dedicated to improving the political representation of people with disabilities. Though other disability organizations exist, El Foro is a cross-disability organization in Costa Rica that focuses on rights rather than on services. The organization’s main goal is full implementation of Ley 7600.
United States-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), which also has a rights-based orientation, collaborated with El Foro to plan a combined training program in political skills and legal strategies. With funding from the Office of Citizen Exchanges of the U.S. Department of State, DREDF staff and board members worked with El Foro members in San José to suggest strategies to address the gap between theory and practice. The project they created was titled “The Training Program for the Social, Economic, Political, and Cultural Strengthening of People with Disabilities in Costa Rica.” During the weeklong program, thirty men and women, both American and Costa Rican activists with a range of disabilities, held meetings to exchange legal and political strategies based on the U.S. experience of the DREDF trainers.
A major goal of the week was basic, but essential: to strengthen disability rights work in Costa Rica by providing a forum for the exchange of ideas. We had presentations, role-plays, and a hands-on opportunity to engage the political process publicly when we attended a disability-focused debate with all nine presidential candidates for a Costa Rican election. Several disability organizations organized and attended the event.
We seized that opportunity to advertise our international support by wearing identical t-shirts with El Foro’s slogan: “Sin Patria Accesible…La Democracia es Imposible” (“Without an accessible country, democracy is impossible”). The debate resulted in lively discussion about disability issues. The entire event presented a powerful and visible sign of people with disabilities’ growing involvement in the political process and the possibilities of international solidarity. As disability organizations continue to work on both the grassroots as well as electoral levels, Ley 7600 will certainly become more than a road map to access for Costa Ricans.
In meetings organized by DREDF and El Foro, participants identified leadership development for women with disabilities as a priority area for further development. In response, DREDF and El Foro again secured funding from the U.S. Department of State to collaborate on a program that addressed the issues of women with disabilities. Building upon the success of the previous program, the “Costa Rican Women with Disabilities Leadership Project” comprised two major parts. The first involved a week-long visit to California’s San Francisco Bay Area by four women leaders of El Foro to explore the work of the many disability rights nongovernmental organizations in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco.
The second part of the project included a five-day meeting in San José, Costa Rica. Our group—three U.S. women and twenty Costa Rican disabled women leaders from throughout the country—focused on leadership skills, including sessions on legal rights and advocacy, movement-building strategies, fund-raising and media skills. Other sessions covered gender and disability issues such as overprotection, violence, family rights and sexuality. As a result, for the first time in Costa Rican history, women with disabilities established an agenda to advocate actively on behalf of their own issues.
The project served many important functions and yielded important ideas, relationships and plans for future collaboration. For the kick-off event on the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3, we took a community bus ride on the first accessible over-the-road bus in the history of Costa Rica. Though a presidential candidate during our previous visit had stated accessible transportation was not feasible, our cross-country ride on the lift-equipped bus showed what is possible. Surely more positive innovations are on the way!
Professional exchanges supported through the Office of Citizen Exchanges focus on strengthening local government, economic development, conflict resolution and prevention and other themes through seminars, workshops, and internships, as well as site visits to organizations and institutions throughout the United States.
