The Rights for All Project aims to help people with learning difficulties and self advocacy groups to learn about their legal rights. The project will tell people with learning difficulties and self-advocacy groups about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

For more information contact general@viauk.uk

People with learning difficulties continue to suffer marginalisation and discrimination on a systematic basis. Although radical changes in social policy have led to the closure of most long-stay institutions, they often find that service systems and traditional attitudes still exclude them from mainstream services and activities, and deny them the right to control their own lives. People with learning difficulties, their friends and supporters regularly report to VIA many incidents of basic human rights being ignored and denied, but they seldom know what action they can take.

This project aims to inform people with learning difficulties, self advocacy groups and supporters about their legal rights, including their rights under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998. The project will visit self advocacy groups across England, including groups from the black and ethnic minority communities, in order to inform and advise them about how to use the law to defend, promote and improve their quality of life.

Three staff will work full time on the project: a project leader, a project worker who will have learning difficulties, and a supporter. The project has been funded for a period of three years, and over this time VIA will:

• produce and distribute accessible material about people’s rights;
• visit groups of people with learning difficulties to explain about their rights as full citizens under the relevant laws;
• advise and guide self advocacy groups and others in defending and promoting their rights;
• advise and assist self advocacy groups to challenge abuses of the rights of their members and of other people with learning difficulties.

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