From 9 to 16 November 2021, Iraq hosted the first Module of the Bridge CRPD-SDGs training initiative. The Bridge CRPD-SDGs aims to support organisations of persons with disabilities (DPOs) and disability rights advocates to develop an inclusive and comprehensive CRPD perspective on development. This will help to reinforce their advocacy for inclusion and realisation of rights of persons with disabilities.
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The Bridge training has given me more strength and power and I am now convinced that I am equal to other people. Everything became clearer to us and we also learned about the problems or difficulties that people with other disabilities have. We learned how to do advocacy and how to convince our counterparts with this advocacy.
I have never seen a training so inclusive. Bridge training is much more complete than any other trainings I participated in before. The Bridge training has allowed us to know our rights at the international level and now, with this knowledge, we will be able to face government officials or others to defend our rights.
Bridge CRPD-SDGs showed us about communication and learning about the rights of people with disabilities: how to defend our rights, how to have a conversation with government officials or any other officials and how to defend our rights. I am aware that afterwards it will be up to us to pass on these messages and we will be the bearers of the defense of other disabled people in Iraq. Thanks to this training I am so confident and so happy. For me, it is an exceptional training.
I was not disabled at first, it was a war accident that caused my disability. So, I didn't know anything about the world of disability and especially about our rights. I am so happy to have learned what I have learned, particularly that the most important weapon for defending our rights is the CRPD. With this knowledge I have gained from this training, I will fight for our rights.
With the Bridge CRPD-SDGs training, I got a lot of information about people with disabilities in general, children and youth, and international and national frameworks. I have known with this training a lot about a very diverse group of people with disabilities. I even learned about associations of people with short stature outside of Iraq. The Bridge training focuses on international frameworks and gives us weapons of defence. It seemed to me that we were within a family with a unique goal which is the defence of our rights.
By participating in this training, I am very very happy because I have gained a lot of information and experience. The facilitators who did this training were very precise and their way of training is very simple and at the same time very valuable because it is very rich.
Before this training our advocacy was just about “care” but now we have learned that it is about rights and that our struggle has tools to defend it. I particularly enjoyed the different exercises, roleplays, songs… it really gave us more information and knowledge to improve our advocacy.
Bridge really brings a huge difference in the information. The facilitators are very motivated, very professional, very decisive in their messages and themselves are persons with disabilities, which is very amazing and really very encouraging for us. I participated in several trainings before, but Bridge brings participation, knowledge, questioning and different activities that really allow us to acquire all the knowledge and that will help and encourage us a lot.
The Bridge CRPD-SDGs was a discovery for me, and it was very interesting. It has taught me that I have rights as a person: I have the right to go to clubs, the right to travel, the right to computers, the right to go to the cinema, the right to have money and spend it as I wish. I feel stronger to ask for and defend my rights, in fact, for the first time here in Erbil I went out alone, I bought my clothes alone without my mother's help and I moved alone in the street. I even got a room on my own.
This is the first time I have participated in an event like this. I felt completely included in the Bridge training and I participated in several activities. I met people from nationalities: Tunisians, Jordanians, Kurds and also people with different disabilities.
I am very happy with this very informative training. I know that the CRDP exists, but I had not read it before. Now, I have learned to use the CRPD thanks to our facilitators. In Iraq, we do not learn sign language, so we cannot study or have defenders that represent us. I am so glad that now we have a group of Deaf people participating in this Bridge training. We counted with three sign language interpreters, which is really exceptional, and we felt completely included in the process.
Thanks to this training we got to know people outside Iraq, from Tunisia or from Lebanon, and especially we saw facilitators with disabilities themselves… This is truly amazing.
The training was amazing. I learned about the rights of people with disabilities and especially how to use the CRPD that I did not know before. I've been to these kinds of events before but during these meetings there were always problems, people were malicious, and I often stopped in the middle of training and went home. Honestly, this is the first time I've seen such kind of inclusive people. Each day was better than the day before and I am happy that each day we learn and update the things taught. I felt completely included and at ease.
The Bridge CRPD-SDGs training was perfect. I wish that other training follows even stronger and more enhancing.
The Bridge CRPD-SDGs was “Fantastique!!!” (in French) … This Bridge will allow me to be armed with a great tool called CRPD to have effective advocacy with regard to the defence of our rights and the Sustainable Development Goals.
A highway has been opened in front of us to act with efficiency!
The difference between Bridge and other trainings is that the information was provided in a modest level, but at an excellent level of information and with an exceptional level of facilitators.
The Bridge CRPD-SDGs is an excellent training which involves every participant with great strength and this experience gave me a lot of knowledge to become a stronger leader.
I wanted to write but the school didn't want to teach me, so I just know how to write my name. But I like to draw a lot and I like people very much.
It is my first event. I felt included during Bridge and people loved me and I love them. It's like my family. I want to act alone and to decide alone. I want people to be aware of what I want.