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

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?