SUMMER 2015
Newsletter of the Association for Self Advocacy
Topic of the issue:
Issue 19
Families and Parenthood
EDITORIAL Dear readers, I hope you had a good rest and a lot of fun during summer. Vacations are behind us and now full of energy we can start winning new working battles. We decided to dedicate the summer issue of the Voice of Self-Advocates to families and parenthood. Many persons with intellectual disabilities live with their family or they want to found a family of their own. Find out everything you wanted to know about families and parenthood in the new issue of our magazine.
FAMILIES AND PARENTHOOD
Editor Senada Halilčević Journalist Hrvoje Forner Snježana Kanjir Fadil Špuren Nera Bajzec Gordana Huzek Tomislav Ivašković Assistants Sanja Martinovsky Ivana Poslon Hrvoj Damjan Janjušević Mladen Katanić This newsletter was supported by a grant from the Open Society Fundations.
What is family? A family is a group of two or more persons who are related. Families differ according to the number of family members. In most cases family includes parents and their children. This type of family is called a single or nuclear family. There is also an extended family. The extended family includes: grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Most often family includes persons in consanguinity. Those are the persons that descend from one another or they have a common ancestor. Persons that descend from one another are for example: grand-grandfather and grandfather grandmother and mother father and daughter
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Persons that have the same ancestor are for example: uncle and nephew brother and sister aunt and niece Family can include members which are not in consanguinity. Like, for example, when a married couple adopts a child. Family members usually live together sharing common space. For example a house or an apartment. Family members work together and take care of many tasks like: raising children managing the money running the household Duty of family members is to help and support each other. Who has the right to found a family? Every person has the right to found a family. Most often family starts when two persons in marriage have children. If a man and a woman are not married, but they live together for a long time or they get a baby, they become extramarital partners in extramarital union. This means that persons who are not married can also found a family. Persons with intellectual disabilities also want to found families. But their right to found a family is often not respected. Many people think that persons with intellectual disabilities are not capable to be married or to have a family.
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Croatian laws and courts make difficult or do not allow persons with intellectual disabilities to found and have families. This is because many persons with intellectual disabilities do not have legal capacity. The right to found a family in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities In the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities is written that persons with disabilities have a right to respect for home and family. This means that persons with disabilities have the same marital and parental rights as all other people. They have the right to marry and found a family as all other people. They have the right to freely decide when to have children. They have the right to freely decide how many children they will have. They have the right to support in family planning. They have the right to protection of health in order to be able to have children one day. They have the right to be foster and adoptive guardians to a child. They have the right to be foster or adoptive parents to a child as all other people. What is in child’s best interest must always be taken into account when a decision on a guardian, foster or adoptive parent is being made. The state must help persons with disabilities in child care. What is parenthood? Parenthood is relations between parents and children. The goal of parenthood is to protect a child, take care of his needs and give him love, support and encouragement.
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Rights and responsibilities of parents is parental care. Some responsibilities of parents are: taking care of baby’s health and life raising a child nurturing a child protecting a child taking care of child’s education Parents have the right to live with their child and take care of his properties. Some of the rights of a child are: care for his health and life security and education in the family live with parents meeting and spending time with parents if a child does not live with his parents choice of education, profession and the right to work. Child should respect his parents and help them. Child has the right to his opinion. Parents should listen to a child and talk with him. When he turns 18 a child gets full legal capacity. This means that a child can make decisions and take responsibility for them. Parents of a child with intellectual disabilities usually initiate the process of deprivation of legal capacity of their children. Parents then become guardians and make decisions for their children. When they make decisions for their children parents should respect children’s views and opinions. Why is family important in the life of person with intellectual disabilities? Family is very important in life and growing up of persons with intellectual disabilities because it helps you to learn new things Voice of Self-Advocates
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needed when you grow up. Parents give you support and security. Persons with intellectual disabilities also can found their own family. This means that you can have a wife or a husband and your children. But, many persons with intellectual disabilities do not have equal opportunities as others to found a family. This is caused by many barriers. Persons with intellectual disabilities often do not have support from their parents, brothers and sisters or their community to found their own family. They are considered incapable to take care of their family. Some people even think that persons with intellectual disabilities cannot fall in love or truly love another person. Most of them are deprived of legal capacity. When you are deprived of legal capacity you need approval from your guardian if you want to marry. If the guardian does not approve it, then you can ask the permission from the court. If a person deprived of legal capacity gets a child social care centre will take the child away from the person. Majority of persons with intellectual disabilities do not have a job although they could and they want to work. Without the job you do not have money and you cannot take care for your family. The truth is that persons with intellectual disabilities can fall in love and have deep love relationships as everyone else. Our friends give us many examples for this.
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Why is important support in family and parenthood? Support in founding your own family and raising children can give you your parents, friends, assistants or some experts. Sometimes it is hard to maintain relationship with a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Support can help you in arranging when and where you can meet or can help you to come to the place where you will meet. Support can help you to solve some problems in a relationship. Support can help you in planning to live together with your girlfriend or boyfriend and founding your own family. For example support can help you to decide: where you will live how will you pay your bills will you have children how will you raise your children Good support does everything in agreement with you and helps you to make your own decisions. It is not good that support decides for you or interferes in your decisions. How to found your own family? In order to found a family first you must find a girlfriend or a boyfriend. That is difficult sometimes. If you cannot find a girlfriend or a boyfriend by yourself you can ask your support to help you meet somebody. A girlfriend or a boyfriend you can meet: in a coffee bar at a seaside resort at a conference on a picnic at work Voice of Self-Advocates
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When you meet a girlfriend or a boyfriend that you like you need to maintain your relationship. This means that you phone each other, talk, go out, or together visit places that you like such as coffee shops, cinemas, theatres or parks. Sometimes you can get into a fight with your girlfriend or a boyfriend and you do not know how to settle your disagreement. This is where your support or a friend can help you. If you get along nicely in your relationship you can get married. By getting married you commit to be faithful, to mutually help and support one another. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities guarantees to persons with disabilities the right to marry and to found a family. But, according to our law persons deprived of legal capacities cannot get married without the consent from the court. Persons that want to found their own family and become parents have a right to support in family planning. Family planning means to decide when and how many children you want to have. But, the right of persons with intellectual disabilities to found a family and parenthood is violated. Society often tells them that parenthood is not for them and that they would not be able to take care of their children. If by some chance they become parents children are taken away from them and are given to care and raising to people without disabilities. This happens because many persons with intellectual disabilities are deprived of legal capacity.
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Newsletter of the Association for Self-Advocacy
What types of families exist? There are more types of families: biological family adoptive family single parent family life partnership Biological family consists of parents and children which are in consanguinity. This means that the mother of the child is the woman who gave birth to it. Adoptive family consist of adoptive parents and adopted children. This means that the parents and the children are not in consanguinity, but that they became a family by the decision of the social care centre. According to our law persons deprived of legal capacity do not have the right to adopt a child. Single parent family consists of the mother and the children or the father and the children. This means that the children live only with the mother or the father. Life partnership is a type of family of two persons of the same sex. Life partners have the same rights as married couples, but they do not have the right to adopt children. Person deprived of legal capacity can enter life partnership only with the consent from the guardian.
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EXPERIENCES OF SELF-ADVOCATES Self-advocate Cherry I had lived in an institution for many years. My mother took me to the institution because she could not take care of me. While I had been living there I was missing my family a lot. I met my husband in the institution. We were forbidden to make love while we were both in the institution because the staff was afraid that we could conceive a child. But we were making love anyway. We would run out and were making love behind the trees and in barns or we were hiding in rooms. After I got out from the institution I helped my future husband to do the same. After leaving the institution we lived with my mother first. Around that time our daughter was born. That made my husband and me very happy. Mother, my husband and me took care of our daughter. But my husband and I could not make decisions about our daughter because we are deprived of legal capacity. According to the law decisions about our daughter were made by my mother. Parents should make decisions about their own child. My husband and I spent a lot of time with our daughter. Together we would go out for a walk in the park or we would play with her.
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Together with my mother we were taking her to a doctor. Although my mother was helping us a lot, we were trying to be as independent as possible in raising our daughter. I think that my husband and I could have raised our daughter even without my mother’s help. When our daughter turned 15 years of age serious family problems occurred and we had to send her to the social care centre. Our daughter went to live in home for abandoned children Lekenik, and husband and I went to live in a supported housing program. All this even made my husband to try to suicide himself with pills. Around that time my husband and I decided to marry. But we had to ask for permission from the court to get marry. This is not right. If I want to marry, no one should be able to forbid me to do it. Eventually the court gave us the permission to marry. Occasionally we went to visit our daughter in Lekenik, and she would sometimes visit us. We had been living this way for several years. After my mother died, my daughter and I inherited her house. That way my husband, our daughter and I started to live together again. Our daughter was already a grown up and so she became my legal guardian. Today we live of family pension and social benefits. I used to work a half-time job at Kuhne Nagel warehouse, and my husband in the DM store warehouse. Today my husband and I are unemployed. We feel like nobodies because of this. We need the job to pay for food, clothes and house bills. Voice of Self-Advocates
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We search for job but unfortunately there are no jobs available. This is Croatian state’s fault. Our daughter works from time to time. We cover our expenses in any way we can. Family for me means that my husband and my daughter help in some things that I cannot do by myself. For example, to help me shopping or manage my money. Family gives me support. To be a parent means to give support and to teach your child to be honest, to go to school, to go to work, to be independent and to help me in the house. I think that no one should take away the children from persons with intellectual disabilities. The state must help parents with intellectual disabilities to retain their children.
NEWS
ZABAVNIK
5th Conference of Croatian Self-Advocates Dignity and Equality in the Community: Information, Safety and Inclusion for All Self-Advocates As before, this year we have also organized the Conference of Croatian Self-Advocates. 5th conference in a row was held on 25 September 2015 in Hotel Dubrovnik in Zagreb. Next day on 26 September 2015 an annual assembly of the Association for Self-Advocacy was held. Self-advocates from all over Croatia came to the conference. Besides self-advocates the conference was attended by representatives from state and city institutions, media as well as experts and assistants.
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Newsletter of the Association for Self-Advocacy
Around 100 people attended the conference. The conference was opened by introductory speeches held by the President of the Association for Self-Advocacy Tomislav Ivašković, Disability Ombudsman Anka Slonjšak, the Assistant to the Minister of Social Policy and Youth Iva Prpić and the representative of the City of Zagreb Katarina Milković. The first part of the conference, titled Media and Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, discussed about how much and in what way persons with intellectual disabilities are visible and present in the media. Journalists Maja Sever, Miruna Kastratović and Petra Deša talked about this topic. Also, we watched short movies about living and being included in the community filmed by self-advocates from our Network of Self-Advocates. Living and Inclusion in the Community was the title of the second part of the conference. In this part we presented the outcomes of the project Decision is Ours that we carry out with support from the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth. Within this project the Association for Self-Advocacy held trainings on self-advocacy for assistants in Centres for Rehabilitation Zagreb and Ozalj. Self-advocacy groups that have started in these centres presented to us their work and experiences. Easy-to-read brochure Living and Support in the Community, made within the project Decision is Ours, was presented by our self-advocate Snježana Kanjir. Zvjezdana Bogdanović, as a representative of the Ministry, also talked about the project.
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Branka Meić Salie, adviser to the Disability Ombudsman, pointed out how important it is to live independently and be included in the community. Adviser to the Disability Ombudsman participated also in the third part of the conference. The topic of third part of the conference was violence on persons with intellectual disabilities. Professor Daniela Bratković and self-advocate Senada Halilčević talked about the violence. Senada shared the experiences of self-advocates with physical, psychological and economic violence which we talked about at our self-advocacy meetings. After Daniela and Senada have opened the topic of violence we had group work. Through discussions in the group self-advocates shared their experiences with violence. You can read more about all this in the next issue of the Voice of Self-Advocates dedicated precisely to the topic of violence on persons with intellectual disabilities. General Assembly of the Association for Self-Advocacy On Saturday on 26 September 2015 we held our annual General Assembly. The General Assembly is held each year and includes all member of the Association for Self-Advocacy. Damjan Janjušević, the Executive Director, reported on what the Association for Self-Advocacy has been doing for the past year.
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Newsletter of the Association for Self-Advocacy
We heard about the projects that the Association for Self-Advocacy has had, which organizations are our partners and what are our plans for the next year and. Predrag Mišćević, our accountant, reported to us about how much money we have, how much money we have received and spent. The most important part of the Assembly was the adoption of the new Statute of the Association for Self-Advocacy. The new Statute reflects the changes in the Assembly Act that took effect one year ago. The most important novelty in the Statute is that the right to vote at the Assembly now also have the members deprived of legal capacity. This means that all members from now on can run as candidates and vote for members of governing bodies of the Association for Self-Advocacy like the President of the Association or Managing Committee. This change of the Statute made happy many self-advocates who will now finally be able to participate in the work of their association on an equal basis with all other members.
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SPORT Qualifications for the FIFA Football World Cup 2018 Qualifications for the FIFA World Cup 2018 start on 4 September 2016. Croatian is in a group with Turkey, Finland, Island and Ukraine. We hope to win. First match we play against Turkey on 5 September 2016. On 9 October 2016 we play against Finland. Against Island we play on 12 November 2016. There are 5 matches ahead of us in 2017. On 24 March 2017 we play against Ukraine. On 11 June 2017 we play against Island. On 5 September 2017 we play against Turkey. On 6 October 2017 we play against Finland. On 9 October 2017 we play against Ukraine. Qualifications for UEFA Euro Football Championship 2016. Croatia played 0 : 0 with Azerbaijan in Baku on 3 September 2015. In Oslo we lost from Norway 2 : 0 on 6 September 2015. We had to more games. On 13 October 2015 we won against Malta 1 : 0. On 10 October 2015 we won against Bulgaria 3 : 0. We also won against Norway 5 : 1 on 28 March 2015. On 12 June 2015 we played a draw against Italy scoring one goal each.
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EUROBASKET European Basketball Championship 2016 European Basketball Championship was held from 5 to 20 September 2015. Croatian basketball players started on 5 September 2015 and lasted till 10 September. Croatia won against Slovenia 80 : 73. But we lost from Greece 72 : 70 on 6 September 2015. On 8 September 2015 we won against Macedonia 73 : 75. On 9 September 2015 wo won against Netherlands 78 : 72. On 10 September 2015 we played against Georgia and lost 71 : 58 because we lost the all of our strength. Final game was played by Spain and Latvia. The winner of the finals and the Championship is Spain. Written by Nera Bajzec
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FUN PAGES QUIZ 1. In what time of the year leaves fall of the trees?
a) in the spring
b) in the winter
c) in the autumn
b) when somebody loves you
c) when somebody rewards you
2. What is violence?
a) when somebody yells at you
3. What is it called a person who plays a guitar?
a) guitarist
b) drummer
c) trumpeteer
GOGA’S RIDDLE I am black as night, always with you, I am hidden when it’s dark, but back again when the sun lights upon you. Shadow
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WORD SEARCH Find in the word search:
LOVE PROPERTY HOUSE FAMILY EDUCATION RELATIONS MARRIAGE FRIEND COMMUNITY
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CONTACT US
Bleiweisova 15, 10 000 Zagreb Telephone: 01 553 05 82, Fax: 01 553 05 56 E- mail: kontakt@samozastupanje.hr Visit our web site: www.samozastupanje.hr or visit us on Facebook
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