SPRING 2016
Newsletter of the Association for Self Advocacy
Topic of the issue:
Your property
Issue 22
EDITORIAL Dear self-advocates, our diligent team of self advocates wrote with support from their assistants another issue of the Voice of Self advocates. In this issue we write about property of persons with intellectual disabilities. Property gives us safety in life, more independence and opportunity to take part in the community. Most of self advocates know very little about their property and that is why we hope you will learn something new.
PROPERTY AND POSSESSIONS
Editor Senada Halilčević Journalists 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.
Property or possessions are things that surround you: For example, property is: money wrist watch jewellery bicycle house garage grave spot land forest Your personal property are things that belong only to you. This means that you have the right to property over those things. For managing of your own property legal capacity is very important.
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Newsletter of the Association for Self Advocacy
If you have legal capacity nobody else but you has the right to manage your property. If you are deprived of legal capacity then a social care centre and a guardian manage your property.
Property rights in the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities Article 12 of the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities is called Equal recognition before the law. This article says that persons with disabilities have the same legal capacity as all others. This means they can make decisions about themselves and all important things in their lives. People sometimes need support to make some decisions. The state has to provide persons with support. Support must help the person to make the best decision for himself or herself. The state must ensure that persons with disabilities can: inherit assets and properties have their own properties and possessions live in their own apartment or house decide about their money make contract with the bank The state must protect property and possessions of persons with disabilities. This means that nobody can take away person’s property and possessions without person’s consent. Unfortunately, According to Croatian laws persons with disabilities can still be deprived of legal capacity.
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Guardian and social care centre decide about the property of the person deprived of legal capacity. Guardian and social care centre can take away person’s property and possessions against person’s will.
How should the social care centre take care of your property If you are deprived of legal capacity then the social care centre will make a list of your property. This means that it will make the list of all the things that you possess. Social care centre will write is your property in good or bad state. If you own a real estate like an apartment, a house or a land social care centre will determine how much those real estates are worth. You have the right to be present when the list of your property is being done.
How the guardian should take care of your property If you are deprived of legal capacity your guardian will make decisions about regular management of your property like the house for example. Regular management of the house means: guarding the house paying the electricity bills paying the gas heating and water bills
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Newsletter of the Association for Self Advocacy
fixing damages and malfunctions in the house keeping the house clean There are actions that exceed regular management of property. If the guardian wants to do such action he must have a permission from the social care centre. For example, without permission from the social care centre the guardian cannot: sell, rent or give your apartment sell or give your other valuable things like golden or silver jewellery or expensive wrist watch The guardian must report to social care centre about his work every 6 months. He also has to report to social care centre about the status of your property, for example: is your property in the same condition as it was in the moment when you were deprived of legal capacity has your property lost its value has your property gained value is your property sold The guardian has to show the reports about your property to you also. Social care centre must protect you and your property if it thinks that the guardian does not do his job well. If the guardian does not take good care of you, your interests or your property then the social care centre must give you another guardian.
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Skrbnik ili osobe koje ti pružaju podršku trebaju ti pomoći u upoznavanju sa tvojom imovinom. Oni ti mogu pomoći da odgovoriš na slijedeća pitanja: Zarađuješ li svoju plaću?
Znaš li koliko iznosi tvoja plaća?
Upravljaš li novcima koje zaradiš?
Imaš li ti kuću ili stan u svom vlasništvu?
Stanuješ li u svojoj kući ili stanu?
Stanuje li netko drugi u tvojoj kući ili stanu?
Ostvaruješ li neka socijalna prava? Koja?
Dobivaš li neke novce od centra za socijalnu skrb? Koliko novaca dobivaš?
Na što trošiš svoj novac?
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Economic violence Economic violence means: taking away of the property you inherited stopping you from using your property destruction of your property stealing your money You have the right to know what things are your property and what is their value. The guardian has to talk with you about your property and ask you how you want to manage it. You have the right to know do you earn money and how much. The guardian must help you to spend and save your money the way you want it. You have the right to know are you entitled to some social benefits. The guardian must help you to exercise your rights to social benefits. There is more information on social rights under title Your social rights and obligations. The guardian must not commit economic violence over your property and possessions. If you think that somebody steals, destroys or stops you from managing your money and other property talk with somebody you trust. Such behaviour is a criminal offence. Person who commits criminal offence can be punished by the court.
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You can report criminal offence to: police social care centre human rights ombudsman disability ombudsman
Your social rights and obligations Obligation of the state is to take care about persons who cannot take care about themselves. For example, persons with disabilities often cannot take care of their needs by themselves. That is why the state has passed the Social Care Act and other regulations that regulate rights and obligations of persons with disability. According to Croatian Social Care Act persons with disabilities have the following social rights: the right to disability allowance the right to help and care bonus the right to social services like supported housing programmes the right to counselling and assistance if you use supported housing services you can ask the social care centre to give you a personal allowance It is important that you know your social rights in order to realise them. To realise any of your social rights you must ask them from the social care centre. If you are deprived of legal capacity your social rights has to ask your guardian on your behalf.
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The right to appeal If you are not satisfied with the decision regarding your property or some other decision of the social care centre you can file an appeal. An instruction on the legal procedure should be written at the end of the appeal. The instruction on the legal procedure says to whom and till what deadline you can file the appeal. You can file the appeal even if you social care centre has not made a decision, and it should have. If you are deprived of legal capacity your guardian can file the appeal on your behalf. The guardian must listen to what you think and take your opinion into consideration. if the guardian does not want to file the appeal on your behalf he should explain to you why is that better for you.
The right to complaint if you are not satisfied with the work of your guardian or the social care centre or the service you use you can file a complaint to the social care centre. The right to complaint is your right. You can express the complaint without having fear that something bad will happen to you or that you will lose some rights.
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The social care centre must read your complaint and inform you within 15 days what actions it has taken. If you are not satisfied with the actions taken by the social care centre you can contact respective Ministry in your country.
NEWS Predstavljanje brošure Tvoja imovina i rasprava o zaštiti imovine osoba lišenih poslovne sposobnosti In May we made a new brochure titled Your Property. The brochure was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth within the project Decision is Ours. Self advocate Snježana Kanjir made a public presentation of the brochure in the association GONG. After presentation of the brochure An interesting round table discussion on the problems related to inheritance and management of property of persons deprived of legal capacity was held after the presentation. Opinions we heard during discussion are a great starting point for further advocacy of the right of persons with intellectual disabilities to manage their own property. Big protest rally for better education system Initiative Croatia Can Do Better advocates for better education system. The goal of the initiative is that every child in school
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can develop the way he or she can and wants to. Schools must encourage children to work and personal development and provide them with comfortable environment. To point out the importance of such education system the initiative organised a big protest rally on 1 June 2016 in some major cities in Croatia and the world. Association for Self Advocacy supported the initiative. Self advocates and assistants took part in the protest for better education system with many other citizens.
Political situation in Croatia During the month of June a political situation in Croatia was very tense. Croatian Parliament revoked the Prime Minister and the government fell. This means that the new government has to be selected. Until the new government is selected current government cannot make important decisions. After the fall of the government members of the Parliament voted to dissolve the parliament. The parliament will hold sessions till 15 July 2016. New parliamentary elections will probably be held in September. Europe in Action 2016: Family Action in Inclusive Education The Conference Europe in Action was held in the capital of Portugal in Lisbon from 26 to 28 June 2016.
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This year’s conference theme was Family Action in Inclusive Education. The Conference was organised by Inclusion Europe in partnership with Fenacerci from Portugal. Senada Halilčević, the President of EPSA, opened the conference with short introductory speech on the importance of inclusive education and her own school experiences. Many sessions and workshops were held at the conference. Experts and self advocates emphasized the importance of family support in inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in regular schools and talked about their own experiences. Annual Assembly of EPSA - European Platform of Self Advocates was held within the conference. EPSA participated at many meetings and conferences in Europe during past year. Members of EPSA mostly talked about independent living and legal capacity.
Community for All meeting in Barcelona Tomislav Ivašković, the President of the Association for Self Advocacy, participated from 22 to 27 May 2016 at the Community for All meeting in Barcelona in Spain. The meeting was organised by Open Society Foundations Mental Health Initiative or short MHI. MHI organises this meeting every year for its partners. Partners have the opportunity to learn new things that can help them in their work.
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This year’s theme of the meeting was creative advocacy and campaigning. At the beginning of the meeting participants talked about their experiences in advocacy for the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities in their own countries. After that they were learning what is necessary to carry out successful campaigns. Campaign means to do various activities like protests, TV, internet or radio adds, leaflet dissemination or similar actions in order to raise public awareness on some social issue or problem. All of this can be done in an interesting way: by storytelling, photo exhibitions in crowded areas or acting and music. Participants left at the end of the meeting with many fresh ideas they can use in their own countries to make campaigns for the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities. Besides learning new things our President Tomislav Ivašković enjoyed discovering beautiful Barcelona and having good time with his friends he met there last year.
SPORT UEFA EURO 2016 FRANCE European Football Cup or UEFA EURO 2016 was held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Croatian football team played in the group D. On 12 June Croatia won the match against Turkey with 1:0 On 17 June Croatia played a tie with Czech Republic with 2:2 On 21 June Croatia won the match against Spain with 2:1 On 25 June in Round of 16 Croatia lost the match against Portugal with 1:0
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The victory of Portugal meant the end of EURO 2016 for Croatian football team. Final match was played between France and Portugal. The winner of UEFA EURO 2016 is Portugal. Written by Nera Bajzec
FUN PAGES QUIZ 1 What can be your property?
a) house
b) electric tram
c) road
ZABAVNIK
2 Which country was the host of the European Football Cup 2016?
a) Spain
b) Croatia
c) France
3 What is the traditional Japanese food?
a) sushi
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b) pizza
c) cabbage roll
Newsletter of the Association for Self Advocacy
WORD SEARCH Find in the word search: HOUSE PHONE INHERIT STEAL VIOLENCE COMPLAINT FOOTBALL GOAL BALL VICTORY
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GOGA’S RIDDLE Into your room I bring the sunlight, not making your eyesight better at all. Nevertheless, when you place me the way is right, you can see right through the wall.
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Whose is your property? Who makes decisions about your property?
Your property is your right! You have the right to know what happens with your property! Ask! Request! Self advocate! Join self-advocates in the fight for your rights!
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