Organizing for Survival: Disability Advocacy during Russia's War Against Ukraine, from refugees to veterans

October 18, 2023 | 12:00PM - 1:30PM
 | 
Online
Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CERES), Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine

This event is over

This was an Online Event
This was a Virtual Event presented by the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine and the Centre for Global Disability Studies at the University of Toronto
 
Disability advocacy is an often-overlooked arena of human rights civic organizing. This roundtable brought together three researchers with new and on-the-ground knowledge of the impacts of the war on disability advocacy and policy and on disabled people and their families. Drawing on expertise, research, and activism, panelists discussed experiences of wounded Ukrainian soldiers; the impact of the war on disabled civilians and how disability advocacy networks and organizations led by disabled people have responded, in both Ukraine and in neighboring Poland to support disabled refugees. Taken together, a new picture of disability experience in war time begins to emerge, as well as a deeply changed political landscape for disability advocacy. What are the lived experiences of living with or acquiring disability in Ukraine (or of fleeing Ukraine) in war time? How are disability advocacy leaders understanding the task at hand? What is needed now? What global networks or historical examples are useful in a situation like this one?
 
Click here for the event recording
Co-Sponsor: Centre for Global Disability Studies Co-Sponsor: Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies Co-Sponsor: Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine
Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CERES), Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine
Olga Kesarchuk olga.kesarchuk@utoronto.ca

Speakers

Dr. Magdalena Szarota

Department of Sociology, Lancaster University
Researcher and expert in human rights advocacy. Researching response to disability refugee crisis caused by the Russian invasion to Ukraine.

Hanna Zaremba

Department of Social Anthropology, Ethnology Institute of Ukraine; Researcher studying Ukrainian disability activism in the context of the 2022 invasion

Ivan Shmatko

Department of Sociology, University of Alberta; Researcher conducting a project on experiences of wounded Ukrainian soldiers as part of the veteran human rights organization Pryntsyp.

Dr. Cassandra Hartblay

CERES and Centre for Global Disability Studies, University of Toronto