Welcome to Disability Pride Month 2024. Join us as we raise awareness, foster inclusivity, and advocate for the rights of all people with disabilities around the world.

At Hope and Homes for Children, we believe every child deserves a loving, family home. Yet sadly, one in three children living in orphanages have disabilities.

Whoever they are, wherever they are, every child deserves the chance to thrive. That’s why, this Disability Pride Month, we’re championing these children and their right to come back to family.

Disability Pride Month Facts & Tips

What is Disability Pride Month?

You might be wondering, ‘What is Disability Pride Month?’

It’s celebrated every July and marks the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed in 1990. This landmark legislation was a significant step towards ensuring the rights and freedoms of people with disabilities.

Now, we dedicate the month to highlighting the incredible achievements of the disabled community and standing up for their rights to equality, inclusion, and visibility.

When is Disability Pride Month?

Disability Pride Month takes place every July – a perfect time to reflect on the progress made since the ADA was enacted.

How to Observe Disability Pride Month

Wondering how to observe this year’s Disability Pride Month?

• Get engaged – There’s plenty happening this month. From flying the Disability Pride Flag to taking place in some local Disability Pride parades and events in your community, there’s always great ways to get engaged.
• Get educated – Read up on what it means to be part of the disabled community, and how you can be an ally.
• Get involved – The best way to observe Disability Pride Month is to engage in fundraising. We’re always looking out for fundraisers and volunteers on our Get Involved page. Head over to find out how you can help out this month.

No matter what you plan on doing, make sure you take some time out for reflection and research. Above all it’s a month for solidarity and celebration. Overall, it’s a month to get involved.

Disability Pride Month 2024

For Disability Pride Month 2024, a huge suite of workshops, events, and demonstrations will take place. Reach out to your local community hub to see what’s on for Disability Pride Month in the UK.

Why Disability Pride Month Matters

People with disabilities can face huge barriers in our society, as well as unfair discrimination and prejudice.

Disability Pride Month reminds us of how important the fight for inclusion and equality is. Celebrating Disability Pride Month helps us break down stereotypes, creating a society where everyone thrives. No matter who they are.

Supporting children with disabilities

This Disability Pride Month, we’re platforming our ongoing commitment to supporting children and young people with disabilities all around the world. Every child deserves a home. Every child deserves to find their way back to family.

Orphanages and children with disabilities

The UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states the right of all people (including children) with disabilities to independent-living, family life and to access the highest standard of health care, and inclusive education without discrimination. 

Yet still, young people with disabilities are among the most vulnerable in society.

Did you know?

• One in three children in orphanages have disabilities.
• Without the right support, struggling parents may feel like their only option to get their children the care they need is inside an orphanage. Sadly, it’s not true.
• Orphanages can neglect children and young people with disabilities, exposing them to violence, abuse, and even trafficking.
• Young people with disabilities in orphanages don’t get the individualised support they need, depriving them of their chance to grow with their disabilities.

You can read more about how orphanages harm children and why children with disabilities need loving family homes on our website.

How are we helping?

It’s our mission to bring every child living in orphanages back to family. Including children with disabilities. We work tirelessly to dismantle orphanages and reform childcare systems globally, ensuring every child, regardless of ability, grows up in a nurturing family environment.

Our work proves that young people with disabilities always thrive when they return to their families. Young people like Divine*.

Divine’s story

Divine, born with disabilities, was placed in an orphanage because her mother, Ruwera, fell sick and couldn’t afford to care for her anymore. She prayed she’d receive the support she needed. Instead, Divine suffered for nine long years.

Thankfully, your donations helped bring Divine out of the orphanage and back to family. Now, she’s happy, healthy and surrounded by family.

“In years to come, I’ll become a journalist or a lawyer. I want to advocate for people living through injustice, like people with disabilities.”

Divine

Read Divine’s full story here.

How You Can Make a Difference

1. Read their stories: Learn more about what life for children living with disabilities. Children like Uwase* and Ivan*.
2. Spread the word: Share information on social media and in your community. Use the hashtag #DisabilityPrideMonth to join the conversation.
3. Donate today: Your contributions help us continue our vital work in reuniting children with disabilities with their families. Every donation makes a significant impact.

Subscribe to our Mailing List

Thanks to your support, we’re making waves for children with disabilities, all around the world.

Want a regular dose of impact straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our mailing list—it’s jam-packed with heartwarming stories, interesting facts and exciting ways to get involved. Welcome to our movement.

Join the mailing list

The post Disability Pride Month 2024: Empower, Nurture and Celebrate appeared first on Hope and Homes for Children.

This is a significant step towards ensuring that child protection is at the forefront of the policies of the EU Member States and beyond, and a great opportunity to address care reform.

Quality child protection systems focus on upholding children’s rights and protecting them from harm. They are also defined by their ability to prevent unnecessary family separation, and by their capacity to provide adequate alternative family-based care for children, in line with their specific needs and best interests.

In our contribution, we call on the Commission to include the following points in its Recommendation to the Member States:

Address the root causes of family separation and child institutionalisation

Mature child protection systems prioritise preventing situations of risk for children. To prevent family separation and child institutionalisation, it is key to strengthen families, alleviate poverty, champion disability inclusion and provide quality education for all children.

Strengthen legislative and regulatory frameworks, including child protection policies

It is crucial that the right of the child not to be separated from their families and grow up in a loving and stable environment is recognised in the legislative framework of EU Member States.

Establish governance and coordination structures

Collaboration between different sectors such as welfare, education, health, security, justice, and migration is essential to avoid fragmentation in the response, and minimise trauma for children. Therefore, collaborative platforms that bring together community stakeholders, authorities and the civil society are essential. These platforms should be responsible for identification, referrals, and
decisions about child protection and care at both local and national levels.

Ensure a continuum of services

Member States should commit to ensuring family and community-based care for all children. To make this possible, it is necessary to strengthen national social protection systems and ensure a safe transition process for children and young care-leavers, tailored to their individual needs and circumstances.

Secure minimum standards and oversight mechanisms

Formal alternative care settings, including foster care, must meet minimum standards. Measures, indicators and tools, and monitoring and evaluation systems should be in place under the auspices of a national coordinating framework. Member States should assess the availability, accessibility, inclusivity and quality of existing prevention and alternative care services in the community.

Support the child protection systems through human, financial, and infrastructure resources

Services for preventing family separation and providing quality alternative family and community-based care must be well-funded and prioritized. The relevant staff should also be provided with training.

Ensure mechanisms for child participation

It is crucial to ensure continuous engagement of all children and youth within decision-making processes, fostering their active participation and providing them with a platform where their voices can be heard.

Establish data collection and monitoring mechanisms

Member States must comprehensively monitor the situation of children in alternative care, including those with disabilities. This mapping should also include assessing the capabilities of the national social workforce, case management capacity, and the resources within the system.

The European Commission will use this Recommendation as a reference point for child protection systems in the EU. It will also serve as inspiration for EU enlargement countries. Therefore, we hope to see our recommendations linked to care reform in its final text and in the coming months will advocate further for securing this.

The post Our contribution to the European Commission’s Recommendation on integrated child protection systems appeared first on Hope and Homes for Children.

In March 2023 we, and eleven other child rights and disability rights NGOs and networks, suggested amendments to the revised EU Anti-Trafficking Directive. The directive focuses on strengthening measures to protect children without parental care from trafficking. Relevant European Parliament Committees voted on the directive on 5 October, and as a direct result of our active engagement, most of our amendments appear in the European Parliament’s position.

The link between trafficking and child institutionalisation  

Children in institutions are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The Parliament’s report identifies the exploitation of children in, and from, institutions as a specific type of trafficking. It imposes an increased penalty on perpetrators if the crime of trafficking is committed against children from institutions. Member States must also ensure that child protection systems, including residential institutions, develop specific plans to prevent child trafficking.

Protecting children without parental care from trafficking 

The directive places a strong emphasis on protecting children throughout identification, reporting, referral, investigation and recovery processes. Law enforcement authorities and other professionals should adopt an intersectional approach when supporting victims. To ensure this, Member States must provide training on interacting with victims in a gender, disability and child-sensitive way. They must involve civil society organisations in the early detection and identification of victims. And they must ensure when recovering child victims they do not deprive them of their liberty. The Parliament also recognises the importance of providing support to

• the children of victims,
• children who have witnessed trafficking, and
• children who have been deprived of parental care as a result of trafficking.   

Comprehensive measures to prevent trafficking  

The European Parliament’s position introduces strong measures to prevent trafficking. Member States must now conduct awareness campaigns to address stereotypes that contribute to trafficking, and undertake in-depth qualitative research to examine the root causes, prevalence, and impact of child trafficking. To ensure a coordinated effort, states must also integrate anti-trafficking measures into emergency response plans. Moreover, they must represent children deprived of parental care in data collection mechanisms. Programmes to support children’s transition to adulthood are also included in the preventive measures.  

Next steps 

Parliament will now enter tri-lateral negotiations with the European Commission and the Council of the European Union to agree on the final text of the Directive. EU directives are legal instruments that provide common rules for all EU Member states, with each country required to incorporate them into their national laws. Therefore, the incorporation of our amendments in the final text significantly strengthens the measures to tackle child trafficking throughout the EU. We are committed to ensuring that all parties preserve our amendments during this crucial negotiation phase.

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