The newsletter
The newsletter is designed to tell our partners in Ghana, Uganda, Nicaragua and Honduras about our work - in Denmark and also abroad. In the newsletter you will find more information about the challenges DHF faces in Denmark and up-dates on the projects.

We would also like to encourage our partners in Ghana, Uganda, Nicaragua and Honduras to contribute with articles, developing this newsletter from being only information from Denmark to becoming an opportunity for all our partners to network and share experience. If you would like to add something to the newsletter, then please forward it to uland@dhf-net.dk.

The newsletter will be published 4 times a year.


Denmark
Rehab-fair
In May we had a large fair in Copenhagen where a lot of new products for PWDs were presented. 8000 people attended over the three days the fair lasted.

DHF had an exhibition stand for everyone to come and hear about our association or to get advice on disability-related topics. We hope it will bring new members to DHF.

A newly released wheelchair from Panthera, a Swedish company, attracted a lot of attention. Weighing only 4.2 kg with wheels on and 2.1 kg without, makes it one of the lightest on the market. It is made of carbon, which makes it very strong and stable. See more on www.Panthera-x.com. 

Of other special products was a robot going around the fair on its own. The robot has a screen, a camera and a phone so that the owner can get in touch with authorities if problems or accidents occur. It is specially made for older people or PWDs to make them feel more safe in their home.

Book publishing
DHF have produced the childrens book ‘Fatima – pigen i kørestolen’ (Fatima - the girl in the wheelchair), together with a Danish organization called International Børnesolidaritet, who works for children in third world countries. The book portraits the eight year old Nicaraguan Fatima, who has spina bifida. It is written for Danish children in a simple language, to give an understanding of Fatimas life and it describes the situation for PWDs as well as it presents Nicaraguan living.
See more about Fatima on www.santaclara.dk

DHF Homepage and Facebook
We have expanded our homepage with a full English version on all our information. Please visit. A Spanish version will soon follow.

Also we have made a group on Facebook that you can visit and support on DHF Development Work.


The Organization of DHF
In this and the following newsletters we will present the different sectors of DHF, to give an idea on how we operate. This first part is a presentation of the overall organization. Special thanks to Susanne Olsen, National President of DHF, for input. See also this presentation on the DHF homepage.

DHF is basically 53 Local Branches and 4 Special Groups. The Local Branches do local work in the interest of PWDs, they have general assemblies and functions overall as a regular smaller organisation. So does The Special Groups, except that they are nationwide and specialized. The groups are The Spinal Cord Injuries Association, The Parents Group, The Amputees and The Youth Group.

Every second year representatives from the Local Branches and the Special Groups meet on Congress. Congress is the highest authority in DHF and the main task here, is to elect the Main Board and to discuss the political strategy for the next two years, until next Congress. On Congress 2 from each Local Branch and Special Group + 1 ekstra per every 150 member participate.

The Main Board is the leader of DHF from one Congress until the next. The Main Board meet twice a year and is responsible for the strategy being fulfilled. The Main Board is also responsible for the Committees. On the Main Board are:

• The President

• The Vice President

• The Head Cashier10 Board members elected on Congress

• 10 Board members representing the Regions

• 8 Board members representing the Special Groups

The National Executive Board is in charge of the political work in DHF on a daily basis, between the Main Board meetings. All aspects of political ad hoc questions are taken care of by the National Executive Board. The National Executive Board consist of:

• The President

• The Vice President

• The Head Cashier

• 4 Board members elected by and from the Main Board

The Head office is the DHF physical headquarters, where all our staff are working. That is the President, the Director, the Head Advisor, Accountants, Member magazine editor, the Development Secretariat and others.

On the DHF Advisory Team there is 3 employees and a number of volunteers. The Advisory Team is helping our members with problems like fulfilling their legal rightsIn

The Committees there are members from the Main Board, The Advisory Team and others. The Main Board decides which Committees shall be and put them together. We have at the moment 6 Committees on following issues:

• Labourmarket Policy

• Social Policy

• Ethical Issues

• Development Work

• Information

• Member Courses

We will present the Committees and their functions in the next newsletters


The UNIDAD project
An important component of the project is the experience exchange between the disability movement in Honduras and Nicaragua. It has been a very important component, and the exchanges have been done on different levels. There have been experience exchanges between organizations, between local branches in the two countries and also between local branches in the same country. There have also been experience exchanges with participants from various organizations on a certain theme as for instance advocacy and capacity building of local branches.

As part of the project a gender commission has been started in each country, and they have made gender studies, gender strategies and gender training for the leaders of the organizations. In Nicaragua there have been a long history of the gender commission, but it is just starting up in Honduras.

In June the project celebrated it’s biannually assembly with delegates from the seven partners in Nicaragua and the 6 partners from Honduras. They have analyzed the monitoring of the project and the discussed new initiatives for the project.


Honduras
After a very slow start the training unit has now persons contracted, and will probably start training in august to train leaders from the disability movement.

The Association of the deaf has unfortunately decided to leave the project, at least for the moment.

The Federation of Organizations of People With Disabilities has just concluded the training in advocacy.


Nicaragua
The Association of the physical disabled has opened two new local branches.The Association of the blind has just held their General Elective Assembly, and the former chairman David Lopez was reelected. DHF wants to congratulate with the election.

The disability movement leaded by the federation – Feconori, has for along time advocated for a new law for PWDs. There has been made a commission of members of the parliament together with persons from the movement and they have almost concluded their work with the proposal for the new law.

Feconori is also working hard on the area of education and various organizations participate actively in the commission of educational inclusiveness.


Bolivia
DHF has made an application for a project formulation mission in Bolivia in September, and DHF will get the answer latest on the 25^th of June. DHF hope to start up a project in Bolivia in the first semester of 2011.


Ghana
Visit from NCPD and GDF
Representatives from the NCPD (National council on PWDs) and GFD (the umbrella organization for the disability movement in Ghana) undertook a five day working visit to Denmark from the 31st of May to the 4 of June 2010. The team comprised Mr. Duut Bonchel Abdulai, (acting Executive Secretary- NCPD), Mrs. Emma Lillian Bruce-Lyle (Member - NCPD), Mr. Ivor Greenstreet (Member-NCPD) as well as Mr. Gregory Lankono (representing GFD).

The purpose of the study tour was to observe on first hand the work of the national disability council of Denmark and particularly to study how the DPOs collaborate with the council. This understanding will hopefully help Ghana design a unique working relationship with key stakeholders such as GFD and its member organizations.

The program was very hectic due to the relatively short time the delegation had in Denmark. The first meeting was an introduction to the Disability situation in Denmark by a member of the Danish disability council and former judge, Mr. Holger Kallehauge. Later the delegation had the experience to meet the Deputy head of the section, Anne Baekgaard, special consultant Julie Baektorp and Kirsten Brondum from the National Disability council of Denmark. To learn more about the local work, a meeting with a local disability council was arranged, were both members of the local disability council and a representative of the Municipal authority participated.


Uganda
DHF will together with the Danish Brain Injured Association make a pre-apprasial in Uganda the last two weeks of June.

Both of the DHF ongoing projects with UNAPD will end this year, the special branch project came to an end already a few months ago. Therefore DHF and DBIA will make a joint visit to Uganda were we together with UNAPD will formulate a project proposal for a new project.

The ongoing Accessibility project will end in August this year but has achieved a number of results, especially the formulation of the national standards for accessibility in Uganda, something which in the future will influence the national legislation in Uganda. The 27^th of May 2010 the Accessibility Standards was formally launched at a ceremony presided over by the Country Representatives of the UN High- Commissioner for Human Rights. To get full attention in public on the important event, a numbers of advocacy activities were launched just before the launching of the standards, like three radio talk shows on different radio stations. The objectives were to raise awareness about accessibility needs of PWDs.

UNAPD has, as part of the project been very active in registering members. It is new for UNAPD to ask for a membership fee, which leads to a membership card so members can prove their membership. Until now, around 2000 members have paid fee and are formally registered as members in one of UNAPD´s district associations.