NEWS: Disability Rights Fund Receives $1.3 Million from DFID

PRESS RELEASE: Disability Rights Fund Receives $1.3 Million from DFID

December 3, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BOSTON, MA – On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Fund (DRF) is happy to announce receipt of a grant of £868,000 ($1.3 million) from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). This grant will support expanded grantmaking in 2009 to disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) in the Global South.

“With the present economic downturn, this donation is an incredible message of support,” stated DRF’s Director Diana Samarasan. “It underscores the commitment of the British government to a rights-based approach to disability.”

Utilizing the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), DRF supports the human rights advocacy of DPOs in the Global South and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union. Through its unique governance structure, the Fund is a partnership between donors and the worldwide disability community. A global advisory panel provides recommendations on grantmaking strategies; and panel representatives also serve on the Fund’s grantmaking decision body together with donors. Panel members come from five continents and reflect a broad cross-section of the disability community,

DFID representatives stated, “it is essential that efforts like the Disability Rights Fund continue their support of communities often unreached by more conventional development efforts. DRF represents a unique model of supporting community-led efforts to institute rights.”

DRF’s first grants decisions, announced in November 2008, resulted in a total of $800,000 in grants to 33 organizations in seven countries. Grantees include a Ugandan organization of lawyers with disabilities, an emergent Peruvian group of people with psycho-social disabilities, and a grassroots network in Bangladesh of women-led disabled persons’ organizations. For a full list of grantees and more information about DRF, see www.disabilityrightsfund.org.

Other donors to DRF include: an anonymous founding donor, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Open Society Institute, and the American Jewish World Service.

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Thank you to Diana Samarasan for passing along this press release. Readers who have not already done so may wish to explore see the resource section of the Disability Rights Fund website for an extensive collection of resources related to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); fund raising sources; and toolkits that can help organizations learn how to raise funds more effectively.

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